Total Drama Raptured
by Rufus T. Serenity
Summary: The Total Drama Jumbo Jet is forced down over the Atlantic Ocean. Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah get separated from the rest of the remaining contestants. They discover the gateway to something different. The gateway to the impossible. The gateway to…Rapture! The teens will struggle to not just survive but also keep their sanity and deepest beliefs intact in the first "Bioshock"!
1. Still You Are Blest

**Author's Notes: Hello to you fans of Total Drama fan-fiction, both those who have read some of my stuff already and those who haven't! **

**This story is both my first attempt at a crossover story and it was my first go at writing some of the original contestants. Here's the basic premise of the story: The Total Drama Jumbo Jet is forced down over the Atlantic Ocean. Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah get separated from the rest of the remaining contestants. They discover the gateway to something different. The gateway to the impossible. The gateway to…Rapture! From there, the must survive the events of the first Bioshock. And not just physically mind you, but also psychologically and philosophically. **

**I'll likely talk about these points in future chapters but here are a few key things to keep in mind about this story. One, these four characters were chosen not because they are my favorites (though most of them are) but because they all would have unique personalities and reactions to the horrors of Rapture. Two, this is a Total Drama crossover with the first Bioshock so Bioshock 2 will either be unacknowledged or any references to it will be small and of little importance (because while I know of most of that game's plot, I've never actually played it). Three, in addition to making it out alive, all four of them will be forced to face their worst fears, to question there most deeply held beliefs, and to depend on each other. Four, many of the details that I will use to describe the people and elements of Rapture will be based on those found in John Shirley's book "Bioshock: Rapture". If you are a fan of Bioshock, I can't recommend this prequel to the games enough! **

**I'll have more to say in the endnotes but I think this is enough for the opening chapter. **

**Now then, here's the first chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Still You Are Blest**

* * *

Deep rumblings and the movements of various parts formed a faint background score as the Total Drama Jumbo Jet flew, however hazardously, over the wide waters of the Atlantic Ocean.

Unthinkingly, other sounds added to this symphony of the unintentional. These sounds were snores and slumbering grunts from the Economy Class section, the by-products of exhaustion and annoyance. Both feelings were very understandable.

Even by the standards of Total Drama, the events that transpired on the island of Jamaica were bizarre and taxing. After a truly unanticipated series of events, two contestants were eliminated from the game in ways that made them precedents. Izzy, the wild redhead, became the first contestant in Total Drama to be eliminated due to a medical injury. More specifically, having the whole bloody Jumbo Jet fall right on top of her head! DJ, the gentle giant, became the first member to be the last member of a team eliminated. His brief yet painful trip out of the Drop of Shame was the death bell for the ironically named Team Victory.

Even after all of that, the plane was grounded in Jamaica due to Chris' wasteful ways. It was only thanks to the intervention of those no longer in the game and the destruction of an entire recording studio (which Owen lamented not being there for) that this Spruce Goose imitator left the sparkling waters and white beaches of the tropical island.

All of the contestants, winner or loser in Jamaica, were forced into the dreaded Economy Class. As a result, the nine teenagers slept in this dirty and depressing section. Even in sleep, the adolescents stuck to the divisions based on team.

* * *

On the right of the plane, the four women and one man of Team Amazon slumbered.

Slumped in the corner to the right, Heather slept, as she remained throughout this season, alone.

Closer to the middle of the right-hand side, Gwen and Courtney tried to recover for whatever madness came next mere feet from each other. The two hadn't buried the hatchet between them based on Courtney's suspicions of Gwen trying to steal Duncan. Therefore, this was more based on mutual contempt for the others on their team. Both of them had valid reasons for hating Heather and both found Sierra beyond annoying.

Looking to their left, one found the borderline psychotic stalker. Even in deep sleep, Sierra was living up to her title of the Obsessive Uber-Fan. Her arms were wrapped around the object of her obsession, Cody, as if they were boa constrictors.

But unlike the real deal, these boa constrictors loosened their grip on Cody. As the techno-geek looked around half-asleep after falling flat on his face, he noticed his freedom and the reason for it. It seems that in her sleep Sierra had grabbed her own backpack thinking it was Cody. With her complementing "Cody" on how nice his deodorant smelled, the real Cody realized that this may have been because that the tall, tan, purple-haired girl had taken so many of his possessions that his odor remained.

Even in this sluggish state, Cody was correctly crept out by the whole notion. His mind was telling him to get as far away from this girl as possible but his legs only had enough energy to bring him to the large space in-between Gwen and Heather.

As Cody looked with half-closed eyes, he saw a divine, dark angel, her pale skin contrasting her dark clothing and hair. And add to that that she was smart, capable, and independent; and you had Cody's dream girl. But for once Cody didn't dwell on this. He was too tired. So, after smiling for a second about being near Gwen, Cody fell into a deep sleep in the knowledge that he had a reprieve from Sierra, if only temporarily.

* * *

On the left side of the plane were the four men who made up Team Chris Is Really Really Really Really Hot.

Not presenting a masquerade to anyone, Alejandro slept with a smile most unpleasant, likely celebrating in secret how he pulled the strings that resulted in DJ's elimination. DJ was just one more dimwitted domino on the pile…nothing more. He now joined Harold, Bridgette, and LeShawna on the list of those who fell prey to Alejandro's schemes.

The Latino's despised enemy, the obese Owen, showed a blissful face. If one listened closely, one could hear faint mumblings about giant donuts being flown by helicopters.

Mistakenly, the two remaining teenagers on Team Chris were using their friend's many rolls of fat as a makeshift pillow/mattress.

Tyler, the accident-prone jock in red sweat clothes, was sleeping perfectly. That would have be soiled if he realized that he was cuddling some of Owen's fat tenderly as he mumbled some pillow talk clearly meant for Lindsay…at least, it was hopefully for her.

The other teenager, Noah, was not having a good night's sleep. He rarely did.

As he struggled to remain asleep, something came to Noah from the rafters. As it's tiny paws scurried along rusted metal covered in a faint coating of grime, the something came into the light. It was a rat but not just any old jumbo jet variety rat. No, this rat was the same rat that had fallen into Noah's mouth previously when he tried to sleep in Economy.

For reasons unknowable to human minds, the rodent decided to take a swan drive into the cynical bookworm's open mouth once again.

Eyes bugging open at feeling the furry invader, Noah reacted with even greater horror when he realized that he was caressing another man. The last thing he needed was more "evidence" that he was gay. The yaoi fan girls didn't need any more encouragement!

Remembering the uninvited guest clawing away in his mouth, the bookworm spit the vermin out. Hitting the floor covered in saliva, the rodent oddly enough stuck around and wouldn't take its beady little eyes off of Noah. Still tired and now annoyed, Noah spoke to the small gnawing mammal.

"What do you want from me plague-carrier? Does my mouth reek of cheddar? Do my tonsils bear more than passing resemblance to Gouda? Can you answer me that 'Jerry'?"

All the answer Noah got was 'Jerry' staring up at him with dumbfounded eyes, not understanding what the bookworm was asking.

Realizing this, Noah couldn't help but remember a few lines from one of the countless books he had read over the course of his life. As it pertained not only to the mouse before him but also to those competing in this game of insanity that called itself Total Drama World Tour. Noah repeated the prose of the poem, _To a Mouse_, in his mind.

'_**Still you are blest, compared with me**__…The present only touches you…But oh. I backward cast my eye…On prospects dreary…And forward, though I cannot see…I __**guess **__and __**fear.'**_

This was proven as suddenly Owen's legendary gut began to rubble. While the mouse had the common sense to run away as fast as it's tiny legs would carry it, Noah remained frozen with **fear**, **guessing** what was about to happen next.

He got his answer when the space around him became enshrouded in a thick putrid green gas, accompanied by the roaring and bombastic thunder of heavy human flatulence.

As the revolting vapors started spreading outward, Noah frantically looked around, hoping for an escape. He first turned his attention towards the other spaces on the left side of the plane. But two factors kept him from sitting down among his team.

One, this side of the plane was rapidly being covered in Owen's butt blasts. Two, Noah didn't care for the company very much. He couldn't help but comment on each of the sleeping members of his team, in his own mind that is.

He first looked at the normally loveable leviathan.

'_Owen may be a friend but right now he's acting like a living gas chamber. I'm too tired to be politically correct!' _

Then Noah turned his attention to Tyler.

'_Tyler's not only a jock but he's mumbling about how it's ok for "Lindsay" to fart in front of him. While touching for her its just as sickening as the fumes filling the air.'_

Lastly, Noah's eyes fell on the sleeping Latin boy.

'_And don't even get me started on __Alejandro! My growing suspicions of him were very recently proven correct while we were stuck in Jamaica. Maybe I can convince Owen and Tyler to vote him off at our next destination? Assuming I live through tonight of course.'_

That left the right side of the plane. It only looked slightly more appealing than the left. For one thing, the ends contained Heather, the nastiest girl Noah had ever met (minus a few of his sisters) and Sierra, a girl who made Izzy (Izzy of all people!) look calm and reasonable by comparison.

And then there was Gwen and Courtney in the center. While both certainly had their pluses and were quite beautiful, they also had nasty tempers and the last time Noah checked they still hated each other. He wasn't certain of this since he was never near them during a challenge but he didn't feel like risking it by going near either of them.

Then Noah had a realization that only left sleeping near…**HIM!**

Don't get Noah wrong; he didn't know Cody well enough to truly hate him. Because of his self-taught habits of not interacting with others unless they were characters on the printed page, Noah only knew a little about Cody. What Noah knew was that Cody had (and still does have) it bad for Gwen, wanted and got her bra, and let Trent have Gwen to make her happy. All and all, probably not such a bad guy. At least after when one realized that all people are sad, sick little creatures, like Noah had.

Sadly though, there was also **THAT WHICH SHALL NEVER BE NAMED! **One involuntary action on Noah's part while asleep near Cody became the bane of his very existence ever since. The last thing he would want would be for lightning to strike twice.

So Noah had a choice to make: either sleep near Cody again or die from Owen's gas?

The choice was easy.

Noah sat back down on the left side of the plane with his face not turned towards Owen, trying to fall asleep even as the air became less and less breathable.

This only lasted a few seconds however as a second even stronger fart from Owen forced Noah's hand.

Groaning inaudible curses under his defeated breathe, the bookworm dragged himself across to the other side of the plane so that he was in-between Heather and Cody.

'_Why is the universe so hell-bend on making me appear to be gay!?' _Noah thought to himself before turning so that he was facing Heather and trying to fall asleep.

* * *

Before retreating into slumbers' temporary kingdom, many of the teenagers wondered why the victorious Team Amazon had been forced into the Economy Class. They still didn't know why but it turns out that Chris MacLean had found the now feral Ezekiel on the plane and was planning to use him in the next challenge, with the former home-schooled teenager enjoying first class as a guarantee of his cooperation. The next spot on the map on Chris' itinerary was merry old London; where fore mentioned feral teenager was to imitate famous Victorian era serial killer Jack the Ripper with the contestants pursuing him as he pursued them.

But the contestants would not reach London. Not walk along its cobblestone streets. Not feel the near omnipresent downpour on their heads and the equally enteral fog at their feet. Not partake in the local delicacies of lark tongues, black pudding, or eel pie (and other foods not disgusting to Americans despite them eating things just as nasty).

Fate had something else in mind. It was not in the cards for the ghost of the Whitechapel Murderer to appear before the teenagers. Some of those in the Economy Class would be facing ghosts of the past soon enough. But these would be ghosts who would bleed.

All of those in the Economy Class were dreaming sweet dreams without care, when the Great Chain caught some of those sleeping in its gilded and rusty snare.

* * *

**KAABOOOOOOMM!**

What had happened!?

No one could say. There were only three things that everyone knew for certain: something had exploded outside of the airplane, that same airplane was rapidly falling towards the cold waters of the Atlantic Ocean, and there was now a gaping hole in the Economy Class section.

As everyone on-board was justifiably panicking, one person was doing so more than anyone else. That same person was on the outside of the plane, holding on for dear life, and was slowly crawling his way towards the hole to get back inside of the plane. The person was someone who often thought of himself as the universe's punching bag: Noah.

Feeling the wet winds rush past and spray his cold body and slowly hearing the frightened screams of those inside of the plane, Noah was so tempted to give God the finger. Only deciding not to because he didn't dare take his hands off of the plane. The bookworm had no idea how he was even holding on to the plane, giving the speed at which the plane was falling Noah's arms should have been ripped from his body. But he wasn't complaining, at least not as much as he wanted to given the current situation.

After all, as soon as the explosion happened three other people were sucked out of the hole at great speed because of the air pressure. It was only because of his not very deep sleep that Noah reacted quickly enough to grab the outside of the plane.

Clawing his way towards the hole one tightened grab on hard and cold metal at a time, Noah's mind was a buzz with thinking of all of the possible things he could have done in a past life that merited him suffering so much in this one.

'_Maybe I was a Hindu who ate nothing but sacred cows? Perhaps I was a child molester? Could I have been a member of a boy band or the staff that helped build the atomic bomb? Did I give Stephenie Meyer the idea for "Twilight" when she was a child? If that last one is true then I'm not being punished enough!'_

Contemplating his possible part in a past life towards the creation of sparkly vampires, Noah had finally reached the hole. Almost joyful at being so close to safety, the universe took another jab at its favorite punching bag. A jab that was massive, soft, and white with a green bottom. It seems that somehow Owen was placed in front of the hole and was now covering it up.

After cursing wildly in winds louder than his enraged voice, Noah began furiously pounding the human ball of dough with a single balled-up fist.

"Owen! Do you know what you are? JUST A FAT SON OF **BI-AYIYAYIAAH**!"

The bitter bookworm never got the chance to finish that insult because at the "**BI-**" Owen let out let another of his legendary farts…right in to Noah's insulting mouth. Coughing for a second and putting his hands over his nose in a pitiful attempt to shield it from the smell, Noah took his hands off of the plane.

After literally staying in the exact same spot for a moment, just long enough for Noah to look at his hands and then look at that the airplane before realizing what he just did, the cynic was sent flying into the sheer black of the night sky (resulting in the "**-AYIYAYIAAH**").

As he began falling into towards the night black currents of a sea stronger than any man, Noah looked up at the still falling Jumbo Jet. The flaming exterior made what would otherwise be un-seeable in the jet-black sky stand out in all of its sad and unwanted glory. Noah thought of those on that plane, thought about the terror and uncertainly likely gripping those inside of that gaudy gizmo.

And yet Noah couldn't help but form a small smirk on his frightened face. Right before his lightweight frame splashed into the dark and indifferent tide, a thought entered his head in relation to those on the plane.

'_**Still you are blest, compared with me…'**_

* * *

**Ok, and there you have it…my first attempt at writing a Total Drama crossover story! As I said at the beginning, I have a few more things I wish to say here for you. **

**Those you who have read "Mad Mikey" have likely already noticed this but one of my many goals with this story and the other two that will be published at around the same time is much shorter chapters! While I do think that long chapters work best for "Mad Mikey", it will be nice to have stories that hopefully won't take nearly as long to write and update. **

**In keeping with the atmosphere and tone of the first Bioshock, this story will be a dark and intelligent story in which the Total Drama characters will have to struggle with and endure forces dangerous and totally unfound in Total Drama and reality in general. Again, those of you who have read "Mad Mikey" shouldn't be shocked. **

**Just like the other two stories that will be publish around the time this one is, this story will not be my primary concern as a fan-fiction writer. That honor belongs to "Mad Mikey", which I highly encourage you to read even if you don't like most M stories. The reason is because that story was only made M with the last chapter. But please know that I am thinking about this story and the others as well. It's simply that I'll focus more on "Mad Mikey" first. So while updates will happen for this story, they will not be my main concern. Plus, to make you feel better about this, the next three chapters for this story are almost fully written and will be posted over the next week or so unless something comes along and messes up that plan.**

**Also, if you like what you see, please give "Mad Mikey" and the story "Total Drama: What is Real?" by theGunmaster (which I'm a co-author on) a try! Both stories are awesome and deserving of your time…at least I think so. :) **

**Being that this story is an M rated crossover with a video game that (though popular and rightly acclaimed as a masterpiece) was released in 2007, I'm not anticipating many reviews. So, to those of you who will read and hopefully like this story, ****please: ****read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word!**


	2. Bearings and Beacon

**Author's Notes: Not much to say here. Mostly that I'd like to thank everyone who has read, reviewed, or is now following this story despite being up less than a day! **

**Also, this is our introduction to a few of the four teenagers not focused on much in the first chapter. I'll be curious to see how people think I handle those two teens. **

**Here's the second chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Bearings and Beacon**

* * *

For the longest time there was only featureless black. There was only silence devoid of detail. It was the whimper after the bang, that horrific bang that ruptured the Jumbo Jet.

The black and the silence still held sway over those who fate forced into the cold waters. For at least one of them, the silence was about to surrender its tight and willful embrace.

Taking the silence's place was a sound, a faint sound. Some crash in the distance. But that crash in the distance was soon followed by another crash, this one closer and louder. And then that crash was replaced by one louder and closer. And another that was louder and closer. And another. And another. And another. Until…the crash was directly above.

While the sound was that of a crash, the force cascaded against her skull.

It was water.

Moments later, a second current rolled its way onto the back of her head.

Hearing the crashing and feeling the water, the teenage girl put two and two together.

Waves.

Without any warning, the blackness was robbed of its grasp on the girl as her eyes opened. Though they were opened, the girl didn't truly see because she was instantly in the snare of a violent coughing fit. As her chest burned viciously, the teenage girl was able to cough enough that she eventually forced out what looked like foamy water.

After taking in a few massive gulps of precious and life giving oxygen, the teenage girl closed her eyes and muttered something under her still weak breath.

"Ugh…Am I…Am I dead?"

Her question was answered as she felt another wave lightly break against her back. She was not dead. The dead don't feel the salt of the sea caked onto their tattered clothes. The dead don't feel the sands as they ebb and flow through their fingers at the mercy of the stranger tides. The dead don't feel the rays of warm beaming from the sun on their face.

Unknowingly, the face of the waking girl helped the rays of the sun to warm it up faster. Its paleness, normally reserved for the faces of ghosts and the dead that the sea claims, was the reason. Subconsciously powered by the sun, the pale girl finally rose to her feet.

Despite her legs shaking at supporting her body's weight after the traumatic experience, the pale girl, **the Goth**, found that her tall black boots were sturdy enough anchors for her. Not worrying about falling onto the grains of sand, the Goth girl began to survey the land.

**Gwen** saw land describable only as waves of white sand bordering waves of blue water.

Having seen everything that one could hope to see of this scenery in a single second, Gwen decided to explore this beach of blandness for answers to what had happened.

* * *

For a length of time unknowable to Gwen, she saw no one, not a single solitary soul, as she observed the infinite and mundane drama of the endlessly shifting sands and seas.

But then, finally, Gwen saw something other than silvery sands and sapphire seas! And seeing what this new feature was, Gwen became filled with horror and rushed towards it.

Gwen rushed towards the object that had just floated ashore! Gwen rushed towards **her!**

It wasn't until Gwen was right next to the unmoving girl that she could recognize her. Proving her identity was easy, her mocha colored skin contrasted with the white sand.

Gwen's black eyes widened as the girl's name escaped her bright blue lips, **"Courtney!"**

Indeed, it was none other than Total Drama self proclaimed C.I.T. Although, under the current circumstances, the 'A-Type' teenage girl seemed like that she was going to R.I.P.

For once, the girl whose mouth never stayed shut wasn't talking now…or breathing.

After quickly checking Courtney's vitals, Gwen realized what she had to do right now.

Her pale hands forced themselves on Courtney's grey blouse, unintentionally feeling the mocha girl's breasts. But Gwen's aim was entirely different from what that description would suggest. The Loner's goal was simply wanted to get Courtney breathing again. But after a few compressions to Courtney's chest, there was no response and no change.

Very thankful there was no one else around, Gwen brought her lips down onto Courtney's. From their, with their lips locked, the Goth gave the C.I.T. needed oxygen. Neither girl, for reasons that are different but should be obvious, knew for how long.

As Gwen's lips remained locked on Courtney's, something had changed which the Goth didn't notice due to her focus on saving Courtney's life. Her life had already been saved!

Courtney slowly started to regain conciseness a few seconds ago. It fully came when her black eyes grew to an almost inhumanly great diameter in shock at what was happening.

Not understanding what was going on, not just about Gwen but anything else, Courtney shook Gwen off of her body in instinctual shock. Instantly after doing so, the C.I.T began to cough violently and like Gwen earlier she forced a fair amount of seawater out of her.

After a few minutes of heavy breathing and recovering enough to stand, Courtney finally spoke, though her voice was both weak and cracked from both exhaustion and shock.

"Gw-Gwen? Wha-what's going on here? And why were you kissing me!?"

While Courtney's attitude did rub her the wrong way, Gwen chose to be diplomatic since the C.I.T.'s reaction was very understandable and she felt like she would need Courtney.

"Yes Courtney, its me Gwen. I'm not sure where we are or how we got here. I only came to likely less than an hour ago. And I wasn't kissing you; I was preforming CPR on you. I'm sorry for making you uneasy, unless you'd rather be choking on seawater instead?" Gwen said, trying to be polite and reasonable but still have a little attitude slip in as well.

At first, Courtney looked kind of offended and it appeared as if she might start shouting. However, after a few seconds of thought, Courtney's facial expression softened greatly.

Sighing, Courtney answered with, "No your right. I'm sorry for overreacting. Thank you for saving my life. While I kind of wish that you did it in a different way, I am grateful."

Taking note of the pretty rare feat of Courtney actually being humble and admitting that she was wrong, Gwen smiled at the fact that Courtney didn't give her any addition flak.

"No problem Court. Anytime. I know you'd do the same for me. But if you do, try to make sure there isn't anyone else around, in particular any hormonal teenage boys."

"Can do. The last thing either of us need is more fan boys trying to get under our skirts."

"True but it's a lot easier for you to avoid that than me. You're not wearing a skirt." Gwen said with a smirk. Both girls laughed at this joke, thus reliving some tension.

* * *

After that, the two girls had a brief talk as Gwen said what little she knew. It didn't take more than three minutes. Basically knowing nothing, they began walking away together.

Once the pale Goth and mocha C.I.T. had walked for what they guessed to be a fair distance, the two once again started engaging in conversation as to their situation.

"This has to be some kind of poly from Chris. Only he would do something this idiotic." Courtney said.

"I'm not sure if your right but if you are, I wouldn't exactly be shocked by that at all." Gwen replied, truly torn about if even Chris would go so far as to destroy his own jet.

"Come on Gwen. Out of the two of us, you should be the one who assumes its Chris. Remember the episode where he tricked you, Duncan, Owen, and Heather into believing that your cabins had been washed away in a massive flood and you were trapped on a deserted island? Not only did he make you endure all of that but it actually meant nothing. Who was eliminated? A coconut, an inanimate piece of fruit, for crying out loud!" Courtney said, her voice slowly escalating to a minor shout at the cruel absurdity.

At first the only reply Courtney received was silence. Gwen wasn't sure how to answer. Yes, Chris was certainly a cruel enough bastard to do this sort of thing and he has pulled stunts along similar lines to this one several times in the past seasons of Total Drama. However, something in her gut that she couldn't put into words said that Chris had nothing to do with this. But then two points came up to counter the Goth's gut feeling. First, Gwen had the same feeling before when it did turn out to be a cruel trick by Chris. Second, if it wasn't Chris that blew a hole in the TD Jumbo Jet, who did do it and why?

Sighing in defeat at being unable to come off with a better explanation, Gwen answered with, "Ok Courtney. While my gut says it isn't Chris. I can't think of a better answer."

"Well I have no doubts in my mind. I'm on to you Chris!" Courtney shouted at the sky.

* * *

"Chef, dude! What the Hell happened!?" Chris exclaimed in total confusion and fright.

"Heck if I know, pretty boy. I was flyin' a-long just fine till the something attacked us." Chef said, just a worried as Chris but was able to hide his concerns far better than him.

Indeed, confusion and fright were the prevailing moods of those on the TD Jumbo Jet. After it started to go down, almost everyone was too panicked to do anything useful. Thankfully for the six contestants who were still on the plane when it crashed, Chef was able to convince Chris to spend some money on at least one safety feature that worked.

Said safety feature was a massive floatation device that resembled a giant lifesaver ring that had an equally massive head and neck like that of a duck's. While thankful that the lifesaver did its job, the black cook was confused why Chris chose to add the duck parts.

But Chef chose to let that slide for now, there were far more pressing matters right now.

"Boy! If this is all part of some cockamamie challenge I'm gonna smack you down!" Chef shouted, his normal tolerance for Chris' crazy stunts having reached its limits.

"Don't look at me man! I might like spiking up the ratings with needless endangerment but not at the expense of my jumbo jet. Do you think I'd have had a grand piano, a old wood burning stove, and a Jacuzzi if I intended to trash it at some point!?" Chris insisted.

As much as Chef hated to admit it that actually a lot made of sense when it came to Chris. The host had shown nothing but indifference for others and valuing of his possessions.

So, pissed off but unable to give Chris the thrashing he wanted to, Chef returned his attention to trying to reach out to somebody through the jumbo jet's radio system. But Sierra and Owen shouting in panic for Cody and Noah, respectively, made this difficult.

* * *

Unaware of the fates of those still on the floating and grounded (so to speak) Jumbo Jet, Gwen and Courtney continued to travel along the sands as they struggled to understand.

But then Gwen noticed something in the distance; another object came onto the shore. No, scratch that, it was **two objects!** It was two people being gently pushed by the tides!

Alerting Courtney about this, the two girls rushed towards the two new arrivals. When Gwen and Courtney reached them, neither girl was able to fully process what they saw.

They saw **Cody and Noah**, but that in and of itself wasn't the reason for their confusion. What was the reason was that they were **holding each other in their arms and looking as if they were asleep.** In other words, they looked like the fantasy that many fan girls had!

Gwen and Courtney looked at each other in greater confusion as that image set in. Neither of them had believed the fan girls that the two geeks were secret gay lovers. To them it seemed absurd to believe that based off of one little kiss to the ear while asleep.

The two stared at each other in silence.

Still looking at each other, Gwen and Courtney erupted into unrestrained laughter!

As the air around them filled with the music of their laughter, one of the boys was slowly entering the world of consciousness again. Noah was slowly starting to wake up now.

With the vision of his dark brown eyes becoming less and less blurry, Noah was confused. He didn't know where he was and more importantly, why there was laughing. Seeing Gwen and Courtney as the source of the laughter didn't sate any of his confusion.

But then Noah started to notice that his thin arms were wrapped around something.

Turning his head, the Bookworm's eyes widened to the size of massive dinner plates.

Noah, with an energy never seen in him before, frantically backed away from Cody while still lying in the shallow surf as if Cody were on fire or had caught a deadly disease.

Once Noah was a short distance away from Cody while still refusing to stand up, he did something which neither Gwen or Courtney could understand. They couldn't have known Noah's thoughts when he had been while he had been holding on the outside of the plane.

Noah flipped the bird to the sky almost manically while shouting loud and angry curses!

While stumped by Noah's behavior, this only made Gwen and Courtney laugh louder.

But then Gwen noticed something that made her stop laughing and feel fear once again.

Cody still wasn't moving…Cody still wasn't breathing!

**"Cody!"** Gwen exclaimed when she realized what this meant.

After Courtney and Noah became aware of this, they helped Gwen drag Cody to shore.

Despite their panic, they quickly deduced that the unconscious Tech Geek's lungs were full of water like Courtney's. He didn't have much time before he'd drown on dry land!

"Quick! Do either of you know CPR!?" Gwen asked in a hurried and fitting matter.

The two teens with brownish skin looked at each other in shock before answering Gwen.

"I'm sorry but CRP wasn't covered in my C.I.T. training." Courtney sadly admitted.

"Don't look at me. I'm not feeding into the yaoi fantasies anymore than I already have." Noah said.

After looking at Courtney with sad acceptance and Noah with angry scorn, Gwen turned her attention back towards the unmoving Cody. The Goth was in between a rock and a hard place. If she didn't do something, Cody would die. If she did do something, it would feed into his feelings over her and make them even greater than they already were now.

"First I had to do this with Courtney and now I have to it again to the boy with the hopeless crush on me. It's official. God hates me." Gwen muttered darkly in a low voice hoping to keep the others from hearing her before starting to give Cody mouth-to-mouth.

As Gwen's lips were being pressed against those of the person who wanted them most, Noah couldn't help but grow a massive smirk on his face. Despite Gwen's best efforts, the Know It All did indeed hear her bitter outbursts before she went to work on Cody.

Turning to Courtney, Noah remarked, "So, you and Gwen have already kissed, uh? I'm happy see that you've finally come out of the closet; lesbian relationships are wonderful. And what will be even better is the hundreds of fan-fictions from horny yuri fan boys."

Courtney was all but flaming red and shaking uncontrollably after hearing Noah's words. She was about to shout at him for being a disgusting and misanthropic pig as loud as she could (which was pretty loud) but something happened which distracted her from this.

Cody was starting to wake up!

As the Tech Geek forced the seawater out of his lungs through a series of violent coughs, he started to open his eyes. As the teal orbs began to observe what surrounded him, Cody began being frightened and happy all at once. He must have died and gone to Heaven!

He must have been! How else could there be a creature as lovely as the one above him? Nothing living on Earth could have such a perfect contrast of snow white and coal black!

"Am I…***cough***…am I in Heaven? Why else would…***cough***…there be an angel?" Cody said, not having recovered enough to realize what he was saying to Gwen.

For her part, Gwen was unable to figure out how to respond to that bizarre statement. Her face became lined by annoyance and clashing ideas about how to handle this situation.

Before she could make up her mind, Noah answered for her to the still lying down Cody, "No Cody, this isn't Heaven. Based off of what little I've seen, it bears more than a passing resemblance to Hell! And as for that angel comment, as flattering as that may be, I'm quite sure Gwen doesn't want to hear that sentiment from someone she hates."

Having recovered enough to understanding what was going on, Cody's expression became one of sadness and regret as he weakly said in barely more than a breath, "Oh…"

Seeing Cody's clearly hurt expression finally spurred Gwen into action as she shouted, "Shut up Noah! I do not hate Cody! And I never said I did!"

"Really? Then why did you hesitate to save his life by giving him mouth-to-mouth?" Noah asked, smirking as if he already knew the answer.

Gwen would have responded but she didn't because of Cody's reaction to Noah's words.

"Ma-mow-mouth to mouth!?"

"That's right Cody. Your dream girl's lips were all over yours for a while I'd guess. And what's even better is that Gwen did the same exact thing to Courtney's lips before that." Noah said, adding fuel to this fire that was quickly proving to be very entertaining.

For a few moments there was only silence. Noah was enjoying the looks on the other's faces. Gwen and Courtney were both starring daggers at Noah and were considering killing him. And Cody's head was spinning from the news of Gwen finally kissing him.

Oddly enough, it was Cody who was the first to be shocked out of his shocking state. While the news about Gwen was still make his head feel like a rapidly spinning top, he noticed something towering behind the other three teenage contestants of Total Drama.

"Uh…guys. What's that?" Cody said in confusion while pointing to something.

Snapped out of their differing types of trances by Cody's words, the other three looked.

They saw what appeared to be a lighthouse. But not any lighthouse they had seen before. Noah realized that it seemed to be based off of ancient descriptions of the lighthouse of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Even though it was in the modern age, this was a lighthouse radiating that same kind of true classical majesty.

"Finally! A way off of this beach!" Gwen said, relived that they could finally be done with this endless awkwardness. If only she knew that what was to come would be worse!

Much, much worse!

"I agree. Come on guys, I don't want to be stuck here any longer." Courtney added before she along with Gwen and Cody began running towards the massive lighthouse.

Noah stood there for a few moments before following the other three at a slower pace. He did this because he was marveling at this impressive monument to who knows what. While doing so, he noticed something that didn't look proper for a simple lighthouse. Despite him not being able to get a good look at it, the Bookworm could have sworn that he saw two primitive **missile launchers** at the top with one to each side of the main light.

But even more than that, Noah couldn't wrap his mind around something else instead.

"How is it that none of us noticed the giant lighthouse that's only a few feet away?"

* * *

**And there you have, the second chapter of "Total Drama Raptured"! **

**As you can likely guess, Gwen and Courtney were the primary focuses in this chapter. I point this out because for different reasons, these two are among the popular and polarizing characters from Total Drama. Therefore, it would be very easy to mess at least one of them up and have them be out-of-character. Hopefully, I've been able to avoid this so far and that I keep that the case throughout the story. **

**To those of you worrying, don't worry about Cody not getting enough attention. True he's had the least amount of coverage so far. But many of the biggest character moments and scenes that I have planned out involve Cody in one-way or another. **

**Anyway, the next chapter, which will likely be uploaded either later today or tomorrow, shows the Total Drama characters' first interactions with "Bioshock"! **

**Until then, please read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word! **


	3. Threshold

**Author's Notes: Here is the next chapter. I won't say much here except that this chapter highlights one of the most interesting parts of this story for me. I'll discuss this in more detail in the endnotes after you've read the chapter to see what I mean. **

**Here's the third chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Threshold**

* * *

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah had just traveled up a short stone stairway with many electric almost lamp-like lights turned off and were now in front of a doorway befitting a lighthouse of such amazingly strong presence. There was a great and round copper plated Securis door with massive metal letters proclaiming: **WELCOME TO RAPTURE**.

All four of the teenagers looked at each other in confusion at the bizarre phrase. Even more bizarre was the fact that the door was opened just enough for them to squeeze in.

For some reason that the four couldn't explain, it felt like crossing a type of threshold. It felt like if they stepped through that doorway that they would enter another alien realm.

And you know what, despite them not knowing it now, **they were all right.**

Cody put into words what everyone was thinking when saying, "Are we sure about this?"

"We don't have any other options Cody." Courtney said before being the first to enter.

The others followed the C.I.T.'s lead (just the way she liked it) into the dark lighthouse.

As all four teenagers were now inside of a totally black lighthouse, a loud sound roared!

**BANG!**

Startled, the four realized that the door they had just entered somehow had shut itself. After many attempts and different angles considered for opening them, they didn't budge.

They were trapped!

As they all started to panic at realizing this, the lights began to flicker on around them.

After a few seconds, lights of many types and sizes had illumined the lighthouse interior.

It appeared that this place had been worn down by what looked like about fifty years worth of neglect. The stenches of decay and brine were mixed and overwhelming. The four teenagers needed to shake their heads violently until they got use to the smell. In some places water was dripping from the ceiling, forming small puddles on the floor. Some of the surfaces with cloth on them were waterlogged homes for mildew and rot.

But even noting all of that, the sights within this lighthouse were awe-inspiring!

On either side of massive and now locked entrance, mirrored off of the style of art deco, there were streamlined chromium figures of men. They were statues built into the very walls, giving the impression that they were supporting the building with their arms that were elongated, upraising, and straining.

As their footsteps were echoing on the marble floors, the four teenagers entered a high-ceilinged hexagonal chamber mirroring the interior of an unusually grand observatory. The surfaces were intricately crafted with varying patterns of gems, marble, and metals.

But the most eye-catching feature of this room was a giant golden bust looking down gravely at them. The gilded metal expressed true authority and yet also true objectivity. The expression the giant made of metal showed was one that was stern but not angry.

Draped along the bottom of the hanging bust was a massive burgundy banner with giant golden letters showing a simple and direct message to the four teenagers witnessing it: **NO GODS OR KINGS. ONLY MAN**.

It was then they noticed that there was a plaque beneath this imposing and hanging metal bust. While Noah took a look at what the plaque at ground level under the bust had written on it, Courtney took note to something that had started when the lights went on but she had failed to notice due to the surprise of the unknown grand sights around her.

The slightly stale air was filled with a gentle and whimsical song. At first Courtney couldn't pinpoint it but she knew that she had heard it before. Then it came to her! It was the instrumental of _La Mer_, a French song by Charles Trenet released in 1946. Later, Trenet and Jack Lawrence would add English lyrics to it and release it as _Beyond the Sea_.

As was the intention of the man whose face was recreated in frighteningly massive gold, this song would not just be whimsical but more importantly a whimsically pertinent song.

Hearing Noah say the words, "No way", brought Courtney's focus back to the present. And more importantly, it was about to reveal who this mysterious man actually was.

"What is it Noah?" Gwen asked.

"I know who this man is. But it's impossible." Noah replied, truly unsure.

"What do you mean? How can it be impossible?" Cody asked, now truly confused.

"I don't suppose any of you know who Andrew Ryan is, right?" Noah rhetorically asked.

"Who is Andrew Ryan? Will you just tell us already!" Courtney asked, getting annoyed.

"Alright, alright! Sheesh." Noah angrily said before continuing in a tone fitting a teacher.

"Andrew Ryan is one of the most obscure people in American history. He came to America as a boy during the Russian Revolution, barely making out alive. After striking oil as a young man he invested the profits brilliantly until it got to the point where he owned a significant chunk of America's coal, its second biggest railroad, and the often ignored though very successful oil company Ryan Oil. In other words, he was one of the richest and most powerful men in the world by the mid-point of the 20th century. But there were some growing cracks beneath the financial successes of Ryan Industries. He was intensely vehement in his hatred of Communism and any form of social welfare. He also was paranoid that the development of the atomic bomb would destroy the world."

"This is all very interesting Noah but what does this have to do with anything?" Gwen asked, puzzled and annoyed as to why Noah thought that a statue to this guy was odd.

"Yeah. No offense but I'm failing to see how this is really that shocking." Cody added.

"Trying to get under her skirt by agreeing with her uh Cody?" Noah quipped at the Geek, his smirk betraying his annoyance at the public opinion being so blind as to his point.

Seeing Cody become alarmed and Gwen become angry, Noah continued to speak.

"What's shocking is that no one has seen or heard from Andrew Ryan since he disappeared in the early 1950s. Even though Ryan Industries lasted for a few decades after his disappearance, it was never the industrial juggernaut that it had once been. And yet it seems that Ryan Industries built this whole building, the name is right here, see." Noah said before pointing to the plaque.

While the plaque didn't have the Ryan Industries logo on it, it had the next best thing. There was a quote from Andrew Ryan himself. But it was a very strange quote to be sure: **IN WHAT COUNTRY IS THERE A PLACE FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME?**

"So, this building could have been built before this guy Ryan's disappearance. Especially if his company was as wealthy as you say it was." Courtney suggested.

"That would be possible…if it weren't for one vital detail. If this building had been made that long ago, I highly doubt that the lights, audio system, or doors would still work. As you may or may not know, the technology of the 50s was pretty lacking by our modern standards." Noah commented, offering a partial window into the reason for his confusion.

"I can't argue with that logic but I don't know. This building is in bad shape. I can't explain the lights but the physical state does suggest about fifty years of decay." Gwen says, displaying some of her artistic knowledge in knowing the rough process of decay.

"This is crazy! There no way that either of those options are possible! You two sound like asylum inmates!" Courtney shouted, having had enough of this nonsense from them.

"Well then, as the sane voice of reason among raving lunatics, what explanations do you have?" Noah cynically asked offended by Courtney's charge that he was out of his mind.

Despite herself, the C.I.T. bit her lower lip as her mocha face showed reluctant confusion. Courtney always hated to admit that she was wrong or did not have the correct answer.

But, under the waiting eyes of Gwen and Noah, she could only hang her head in defeat. With a sigh, Courtney revealed, "All right. I don't have an answer. But that doesn't mean what your suggesting makes any more sense than my lack of a reasonable rebuttal."

Courtney's expression then became one of confidence and determination as she says, "I mean, just look at what you are proposing. Let's assume that this place was built in the fifties and that it could still be operational after all of that time with no maintenance at all. What would be the point of a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean? A lighthouse is meant to make sure boats coming into shore don't accidently crash into the shoreline. And while there is a shoreline outside, there's nothing around it. No towns, no people. Furthermore, if that Andrew Ryan was such a prominent and savvy businessman, why would he invest what must have cost ridiculous amounts of money on a big lighthouse? Lighthouses in and of themselves have utterly no profitable potential what's so ever. So what's the point of a profitless lighthouse in the middle of the ocean on a barren island?"

This time, it was Gwen and Noah who were on the receiving end of a questioning stare. Courtney couldn't help but show a smug smile at having rendered them both speechless.

"Ok, ok. Can't we all just agree that we are all equally confused and clueless?" Gwen asked after a sigh, having had enough of what appeared to be a meaningless debate.

"Oh no you don't! You're not getting out of this that easily! In fact, let's hear Cody's two-cents on this. Given that he's been silent so far, I'm sure that he will agree with me. Cody, you surely don't believe these two, right? Cody? Cody?" Courtney said as she refused to let go of this debate by calling on what she believed would be added support.

There was no support for Courtney however. There was only silence instead.

But the reason for their being no support or sound was simple…there was no Cody!

Realizing this, the three other Total Drama teens started to call out for Cody. After doing so for near a minute (though Noah only did so with half the volume of the two girls), they got a response.

"Hey guys! I'm down the stairway! Come down here quick! I think I found a way out!" Cody shouted at the top of his lungs from what appeared to be a yet unknown lower level.

Looking around in confusion, the others noticed a pair of stairways with one at each side of the giant golden statue of Andrew Ryan. Following them down, they soon found Cody.

Finding the Tech Geek, they also found something else, something large and mysterious.

They found a spherical metal object that with a few lights surrounding a big glass door. Oddly enough, the glass door to this object, like the lighthouse's door, was opened.

The coincidence of two doors in a row being opened didn't escape any of the teenagers. However, natural human curiosity peaked their interest and they investigated the object.

Inside they found a space large enough to fit roughly two-dozen people. On both sides were cushioned benches with red fabric contrasting the largely gold-based color scheme. But what drew their attention more was a lever that almost seemed to glow gold for them.

As if it were begging them in silent words to be pulled for some unidentified reason.

The four teenagers inside of the unknown metal object stared at each other and the lever. All of them were mentally contemplating the same question…should they pull the lever?

Not shockingly, it was Noah who broke the collective silence as he said, "So, are we going to pull that lever or just stare at it until we have all got a mental picture of it?"

"But we are not even certain what this thing is?" Cody said.

"And we have no idea where it goes?" Courtney remarked.

"And we have no idea if we'll be able to come back either?" Gwen added.

Noah looked at the three of them as if they all had suddenly sprouted three heads each.

"Let's go through those points one by one, shall we? Cody, yes, we don't know for sure. While I'm not an engineer, I'm going to guess it's an elevator to an unknown lower level. Courtney, that's true, it could lead all the way to China or the kingdom of the Molemen. But either option is better to me than a room we can't leave that likely has limited air. Gwen, it very well could be a one-way ride. And while it's just an extension of my point to Courtney, if we don't take it we have a lovely future ahead of us all starving to death.

Well, do you have any protests for the rationale of your friendly neighborhood cynic?" Noah concluded his little speech with, the smirk forming before the last word was said.

In the few seconds given to them by Noah to raise any objections, no one actually did.

"I thought so. Going down!" Noah said as he pulled the seemingly glowing gold lever.

* * *

**And that was the third chapter of "Total Drama Raptured"! **

**This might be the shortest thing I've written for this website. I had actually considered just adding this to the beginning of the next chapter but I chose not to for an exact reason. Here's why and where I explain what I meant at the beginning. **

**When I was first formulating this concept, I kept running into certain logical problems between this crossover's two properties aside from the tonal difference. For example, how would Rapture be the way it was in the game despite this crossover forcing it to remain that way even though it's over forty years later? With modern technology and so much time added to its existence, how did no one discover the giant city under the ocean? If Andrew Ryan was as rich and powerful as he is said to be, how much would people know about him and how would they explain his sudden disappearance? How would the teenagers try to make sense of this lighthouse before discovering the shocking truth? After an added forty years with virtually no contract with the outside world how did the people still there not die of starvation years ago? How would the machinery still somewhat work? Also, how could the "big twist" of Bioshock, along with what is needed to come both before it and after it, possibly work with these characters from Total Drama?**

**Along with those logic questions, there are others related to things about the translation of Bioshock's gameplay. Here are a few examples of what I'm talking about. Why do the splicers never use Plasmids? How could they and the teens not always die automatically from things like a powerful shock or a point blank pistol round to the face? How could the teens ever take on a Big Daddy and actually win? **

**These questions of logic and other things will be addressed throughout the story and hopefully be both logical given the context and entertaining to see unravel. **

**Anyway, the next chapter of this story is already written but I'm waiting a little bit before posting it. I do have my reasoning for this, I assure you. The next chapter marks Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah actually discovering Rapture. More importantly for this decision of mine, it will be when this story becomes rated M and it is made a true crossover with Bioshock. Both of these actions will reduce potential readership greatly. Therefore, I'm going to give this story a little time to gather some people who will review, favor, or follow it before it will become harder to find. I won't do this for too long, likely no longer than a week. Depending on how many people react to it, I may do this sooner than that. I hope my reasoning makes sense. **

**So until the next chapter, please read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word!**


	4. Revelations andRapture!

**Author's Notes: And here we are…the big one, the chapter that's an important marker! Firstly, it's where the four Total Drama contestants experience the world of Bioshock for the first time. Secondly, it's where this story will rated M and becomes a crossover, two actions that are valid but will reduce readership greatly. **

**However, I'm hoping that the chapter's quality will convince new readers to come. But let's have the chapter speak for itself so you can decide if it will do so or not. **

**Here's the fourth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Revelations and…Rapture!**

* * *

Without even a microsecond of delay, the spherical metal object's glass door was shut!

No matter what knots they have had in the stomachs, there was no turning back now.

Seeing the outside world through the glass door, they saw a few things that they weren't expecting…water! A sign saying **10 FATHOMS!** Another sign saying **18 FATHOMS! **

Before the possible implications of these revelations could dawn on any of the teenagers, a slight screeching sound was heard as something brown that came from below the glass door and now was covering it.

Suddenly something appeared on the brown surface obscuring the glass door! It was a projected slide with a silhouette of the lighthouse that they **believed **they were still inside.

As the slide changed to another, they heard the sounds of hidden speakers coming to life and starting to play preselected pieces of music. As the sounds of piano and symphony filled the limited space, Courtney couldn't help but smile as she once again recognized the music being played for them. This time it was a piece from _Rhapsody in Blue_, a very famous piece fusing classical music and jazz that was composed by George Gershwin and first orchestrated by Ferde Grofé in 1924.

'_Whoever built this, they had immaculate taste in music.'_ Courtney thought to herself.

But what was more interesting than the music was the new slide itself, despite being strange. It was a strange thing indeed that reminded Noah of advertisements from the 1950s. It showed a young woman holding a cigarette while a young man was lighting it for her. What was so interesting is that the fire wasn't coming from a match or cigarette lighter. Instead…it was coming from one of the man's fingers! And what was written around it only encouraged this impossible and absurd notion: **FIRE AT YOUR FINGERTIPS! INCINERATE! PLASMIDS BY RYAN INDUSTRIES!**

With his advanced brain still not fully processing this fantastical implication, Noah thought to himself as he always did, sarcastically, _"Ah, yes, Incinerate! Becoming a walking fire hazard so I can give my beloved lung cancer. My life is __**sooo**__ complete."_

Of course, the irony of these words wouldn't dawn on Noah until he became just that.

Back in the matter of the present, the slide changed to another slide. While not as fantastic as the last one, this one was even more perplexing to Noah for a few reasons.

It was the image of a man sitting behind a desk wearing a fancy suit and holding a pipe. He was a straight-backed man in his early forties of medium height with two thin and crisply straight strokes of mustache, and a prominent cleft chin. Noah couldn't help but notice that his face was calm and his eyes were full of familiarity and a keen, searching gaze though it was also clear that it was intense with the heat of personality and could become blaringly angry in an instant if properly incurred. It was loosely familiar to Noah. At first Noah thought it was an image of a young Orson Welles or a young Walt Disney.

Then reading the words there made him realize why: **FROM THE DESK OF RYAN! **

Just as Noah realized this, a voice recorded began to be played along with the music.

"_I am __**Andrew Ryan**__, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled…"_

The slide changed again to one of a man wiping the sweat from his forehead. Behind him there is a plowed field, a blazing sun in the sky, and a farmhouse with a windmill.

What interested Noah more than the change in image however was the voice itself. Having read a few books about Andrew Ryan, he had read many accounts about it.

'_His voice conveyed a powerful inner conviction, his every word was almost like a lightning rod as it transmitted a mighty burst of electricity in the hearts and minds of all who heard it.' _

'_His voice and what it stemmed from gave Andrew Ryan an undeniable power that most people could never hope to know or possess.' _

'_Hearing Mr. Ryan is like listening to a newsreel. I can't say why but it has the same indescribable legitimacy.' _

'_There was something about him that made you want to open up and speak honestly. If there ever was a God, which I don't think there is, He would have Andrew Ryan's voice.' _

Before this point, he thought that it was all nostalgia-laced sentimentally. He was wrong. His voice did in fact meet the descriptions left down by those in the historical record. But this wasn't the historical record…it was the present day, the age of the I-pod and Skype. How did Andrew Ryan have a voice, even recorded, sixty years after his disappearance?

Unconcerned with this, the recording rolled on with Noah paying the strictest attention as the slide remained on the image of the farmer working in the blazing sun.

" …_to the sweat of his brow? 'No!'…"_

The slide changed to one with the image of a man running away in terror from a giant bald eagle coming from the Capital Building in Washington, DC.

" …_says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!'…"_

The slide changed to one with the image of a man with his arms in front of him in fear of a massive hand coming from a bright hole in the clouds over the Dome in Vatican City.

"…_says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!'…"_

The slide changed to one with the image of a man cowering in fear of a giant hammer and sickle in the sky over the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia.

"…_says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone!'"_

The slide changed to one with the image of Andrew Ryan seen before.

"_I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible."_

_I chose..."_

As the screen on which the images had been seen was lowered, the four teenagers saw watery black.

Following some cosmic cue, a giant squid, which had its tentacles unknowingly obscuring the view, pushed itself away from the window releasing its black ink.

One could not have conceived of a more magnificent or appropriate curtain for what was revealed…

"…_**Rapture!"**_

* * *

Then, the four teenagers of the 21st century saw a sight that blew their collective minds! They saw a massive city that had somehow been submerged beneath the ocean's waves!

Then it dawned on Noah, they weren't in a usual elevator…they were in a bathysphere! Ryan had built this bathysphere! Andrew Ryan had built an entire city under the ocean!

"_A city where the artist would not fear the censor, where the scientist would not be bound by petty morality, Where the great would not be constrained by the small! And with the sweat of your brow, Rapture can become your city as well."_

"Sounds like my kind of place!" Courtney exclaimed, approving of the rhetoric shown, the idea of a place where the exceptional were unrestricted was very appealing to her.

As the recording of Andrew Ryan was done, Rapture was allowed to speak for itself.

And what an amazing job this city did without any petty details like words or sentences!

At first glance, it appeared to be the Emerald City of Oz from the 1939 classic film adaptation of _The Wizard of Oz_. It was infinitely more impressive than flying monkeys.

The initial impression of it was that it was a natural outgrowth of the aquatic world far older than it. But as the bathysphere slowly swam closer, more details were discovered. It was all one massive structure that formed many lesser (but still quite impressive) structures. They all had an industrial art style, like a city mirrored off of the Chrysler building. Or it could have been seen as vaguely matching the shape of the densest parts of Manhattan but the buildings were crowded even closer together and more interconnected.

After passing an even larger streamlined chromium figure like the ones seen in the lighthouse along one of the buildings, they noticed a transparent tubular passageway. Through the glass, they saw a very large and bulky looking man in what looked like a massive deep-sea diving suit wielding something they couldn't see.

Silently the teens gazed in wonder as a blue whale swam majestically in front of them before effortlessly moving its 100-ton bulk over them as if it were filled with only air. As it cruised by the window of the bathysphere a large eye rolled to peer curiously at them.

Actually now being surrounded by this city's structures after the blue whale had passed them, the four still speechless teenagers could see the features of the buildings up close. The architecture seemed calculated to project boldness and bravado…and it succeeded.

Art deco towers that were linked together by transparent tubular passageways soared, sunken buildings stood sturdily while watertight skyscrapers reared up without any sky to scrape. They were crafted from sheaths of green glass and chrome. Several of them looked like artfully transformed lighthouses that had air locks near their bases.

Though this blew all four of them away, Noah and Gwen even more impressed than Cody or Courtney. But this was for very specific reasons. Noah had read many books about the wonders and theories about the deep sea. But this! This blew everything out of the water in terms of the wonders that could be found here. It truly was another world; the surfaces of possible extraterrestrial worlds weren't as alien! As for Gwen, this place had a design, with its art deco flair and color scheme of glowing green contrasting the dark blue sea, which she agreed with instantly.

And indeed, the color was more diverse than just that, and even more impressive. The overall style of Rapture was a gleaming electrically illuminated canyon of steel and glass. The outlines of this city's magnificent architecture became a realm where light and shadow played tag. The foundations of Rapture were put on display by shades of dark green and bright indigo cast off of electric lamps and neon signs. In the shaded blue distances great shadowy shapes with murk-veiled outlines not definable appeared and vanished giving off the faint red glow of geothermal energy. Base lights streamed colored rays up the sides of the building; the subtle reds mingled with greens and purples equally nuanced and tasteful. No matter their color, the lights gave the towering edifices many miles beneath the seas in a legitimate royal splendor.

An electric sign appeared and advertised something called: **RYAN ENTERPRISES**. But that was only the beginning; it was the forerunner to a landscape of electric signs that rippled with the gay life of an undersea Times Square. Billboard signs of neon in all shapes and colors shined a manifestation of man's will in its purest form in the dark sea. A bright blue-green glowed around the words **FLEET HALL** right next to pure white light that displayed something called **ROBERTSON'S TOBACCORIA**. And surrounding those signs were many others with colors from red-gold to electric blue to green-purple being thrown against the indigo backdrop of the deep sea surrounding them.

As the lights of the bathysphere moved, the teenagers were to discover a new sublime sensation. They saw the beauty of a massive crowd of pink translucent jellyfish billowing with their long, delicate looking stingers trailing them. The glows of the lamps and signs would occasionally become bordered by the diffuse and iridescent shimmers of schools of different kinds of fish as they emerged from and disappeared within billowing forests of green kelp and purple sea fans. A raft of sea lions could be seen from below, their silhouettes were near the surface. A pod of dolphins darted by in pursuit of some fish.

Even while taking in these amazing sights of nature, they focused on the city's wonders. But even among these wonders, there were imperfections to be seen if viewed from a certain angle. For fleeting moments, this city resembled a sunken Atlantis instead of a metropolis built beneath the waves, as if the polar ice caps had melted and had submerged Manhattan. Some of the lights were flickering, threatening to go out. Some of them were dark. But most of them still worked and continued to give the city an otherworldly glow. Even if not structurally perfect, this was beyond their imaginations!

As they marveled at the lights, the teens started to hear static from a short-wave radio. Two voices were heard, having a conversation without them knowing about it, it seemed.

"…_but the lighthouse is all lit up like hellfire…looks like some kind of plane crash…"_ The first voice says, a man speaking with something like an Irish brogue.

"_Were in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean…How could it-"_ The second voice says, his voice was far more nasally and less impressive.

The four teenagers, while listening to the words being said, noticed that they had reached a series of almost complete metal rings with openings large enough to be passed through. The four metal rings created a tunnel that seemed to be at least a quarter mile long.

Passing through the opening of the first metal ring, the four teenagers noticed that the words **ALL GOOD THINGS** were on the top of the circle's arch in bright yellow neon.

"_I dunno, you best get over there, and be quick about it. The __**splicers**__ are coming!" _The first voice, the one with the Irish brogue, says with a bit more nervousness than before.

Passing through the opening of the second metal ring, the four teenagers noticed that the words **OF THIS EARTH** were on the top of the circle's arch in bright yellow neon.

"_You've gotta be kidding-"_ The second voice says. As he continues speaking, the four teenagers pass through the opening of the third metal ring, with the word **FLOW** on the top of the arch in bright yellow neon. _"How do you know someone's even coming?"_

When the second voice, sounding more nervous than the first one finished speaking, the four teenagers passed through the fourth and final metal ring. The words in bright yellow neon this time were **INTO THE CITY**. But unlike the first three times, the **"Y"** in **CITY** short-circuited and caused the words to stop glowing right when they passed through.

"'_Casue we got a bathysphere on its way down. That means we've got company." _The Irish voice says.

As the conversation seemed to end, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah had reached the end of the tunnel. They found themselves approaching a new circular opening. This one however was in the wall of the one of the submerged skyscrapers and surrounding it were the words: **RAPTURE TRANSIT AUTHORITY**.

Passing through the hole, the bathysphere stops. As they wait for it to start moving again, the teenagers notice another sign with a similar design to the one advertised before the message from Andrew Ryan began. This one had the face of a man who was putting some sugar in a cup of coffee…by holding the spoon with the sugar by means of a yellow energy coming from his forehead! Written on it is: **MIND OVER MATTER! TELEKINESIS! PLASMIDS BY RYAN INDUSTRIES!**

Again, not having the time to fully consider the implications of this sign, the four contestants of Total Drama found the bathysphere they were in traveling upward. As it made its ascent up a vertical column, they were all placed within darkness and silence.

* * *

Their minds were still too blown by what they had to seen to speak to each other about it. Even though they were in this state for maybe a minute, it felt like many long hours.

"_O-okay, just one more minute…the 'sphere- the 'spehre is coming up now!"_ The nasally voice from the brief radio conversation was heard saying, almost sounding excited.

"_Johnny, security is bangin' off all over…get a move on!"_ The Irish voice says full of worry.

When the bathysphere finally stopped, the teenagers couldn't make much out. Aside from a few lights directly above the glass door of the bathysphere, it was pitch black here. And even with those lights, all that was revealed was a red carpet on the floor and two figures.

"Please, lady…I didn't mean to trespass. Just don't hurt me…just let me go…" The first figure, who has the nasally voice already heard by them, says as he is backing away from the second figure towards the glass door with his hands up. Given that he identified the other figure as a lady, they assumed that this had to be Johnny. His voice was frightened.

The other figure, the lady approaching Johnny, made them all uneasy but where unsure why. She was slowly approaching Johnny while walking with her back hunched. More unsettling, while Johnny was clearly sacred this lady was humming a tranquil tune. Unknown to them, the tune was from the 1939 Jack Lawrence song _"If I Didn't Care"_.

And that's exactly what this lady seemed to be doing, not caring about the man's fear.

Meanwhile, Johnny became more begging, "…You can keep my gun. You can-**ACK!**"

His trembling voice was suddenly stopped with a scream as the lady lunged forth at him! For reasons the teens couldn't understand, they heard the sound of flesh being ripped as the lady's hands appeared to be thrust at Johnny's body. For more reasons they couldn't get, the lady then backed away a few steps…only to run at him and punch him yet again.

As she did this, the teens finally got a vague idea of what she looked like, and they wished they hadn't. While many features couldn't be seen, the one that could was enough. Her body was covered in dirt and her skin appeared to be a dried blood color.

Before they could see anymore, the lady brought Johnny slightly off the ground. While being held in the air, the teenagers heard sickening gurgling's coming from him. Then in a moment that shocked them with its violent energy, the lady removed her hands. But when she did, her hands were not the only things that were removed from Johnny's body.

With a sloshing that was the most sickening sound any of them had heard before, something spilled onto the floor as it was rapidly pouring out of Johnny's body.

Though they didn't know it, all four teens were looking at the scene with pure horror. At that moment, they knew what that red liquid was and felt more fear than ever before.

**IT WAS BLOOD! THEY SAW JOHNNY'S ARTERIAL SPRAY! THEY SAW JOHNNY DIE! JOHNNY DIED! **

With their minds reeling over what they'd seen and having trouble accepting it, the four contestants from Total Drama noticed something under the overhead lights they hadn't before. They noticed the lady's hands…or more accurately, that she didn't have hands!

Instead she had two large golden hooks, now stained with fresh blood, which glistened menacingly. Even more menacing was when the lady started breathing heavily, as if she were sniffing the air. While her face couldn't be seen, the teens saw her look at them.

"Are these people new?" The hook handed lady says with a voice of calm questioning.

All four of them froze, not moving and forgetting to breathe. Fear had locked them up. The silence after the lady spoken was killing them.

"**AAARRRRGH!" **She suddenly roared completely out of nowhere in a loud shriek!

With that, she jumped out of the view of the glass door. They hoped she was gone.

They were wrong.

**CRRREEAK! KIRIK! **

The harsh cry of what they assumed to be her golden hooks grating and scraping stridently along the metal of the bathysphere's top was loudly heard! Part of that top suddenly was ripped apart, the wires dangling while spitting small, sapphire sparks.

As the bathysphere starts to shake violently, the four teens start screaming wildly in fear!

This is only increased when sparks of the hook handed woman's attempt to get to them created long lines on the ceiling which looked like rows of miniature, violent blue stars. The shaking increases dramatically; the four teenagers feared they'd fall back down the column and into the cruel sea. The screeching of metal is joined by the sounds of exertion and frustration. And this was joined by the sounds of their own uncontrollable screaming.

After more than a minute of unbelievable tension, the shaking and screeching stop. Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah see the hook handed lady leap off the bathysphere. Walking a few steps away from them, the teens could again see her outline as a black silhouette.

"**Harumph!" **The lady grunts as she leaps high into the air and disappears from sight.

Though their ears heard someone talking to them on the shortwave radio with them, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah couldn't process that in their manically sacred minds.

It was only now that the full and terrible of their situation dawned on them, or at least the first parts of it did. The full and grimmer dimensions wouldn't come to them until later.

Despite Courtney's earlier thoughts, this wasn't an elaborate scheme by Chris MacLean. The dangers here were very real and not softened to avoid trivial things like lawsuits. They were truly isolated from all that they knew in a frightening and alien new world.

The reassurances and positive energy of the sun and their lives before this were now distant memories. Down in these depths, the nightmares are never ending and unbroken.

Submerged, this city's mask was eroding away, revealing the fascinating but unpleasant skull beneath the neon signs and bathyspheres that created a spectacular first impression.

Even so, possibly still in too much shock to fully understand what this meant for them, Noah turned to Courtney and couldn't stop his sarcastic wit from firing off once again.

"Gee, you had it right Courtney. This is _**sooo **_totally your kind of place."

* * *

**So, the four teenagers of Total Drama have finally arrived in the city of Rapture. Now there's the question how are they going to survive in this nightmare world? **

**There are four things that I need to say before ending this important chapter. **

**Firstly, the four teenagers marveling at Rapture was one of the first ideas that came to me after I had decided to write this story and I imagined they'd be very shocked. **

**Secondly, to me it seems like Courtney would be someone who would agree with the doctrine of Rapture…at least until seeing what Rapture is actually like, of course. This will likely be referenced and addressed at other points in this story. **

**Thirdly, to those of you who don't know, the philosophy of Andrew Ryan is in many ways a direct representation of the philosophical system called Objectivism, created by Ayn Rand (please note the similarity in the names of "Andrew Ryan" and "Ayn Rand"). As this story goes along, the details of this philosophy and the Total Drama characters coming to terms with it will likely become large parts of this story. In fact, this heavy consideration of philosophy for a video game is one of the reasons why the first "Bioshock" is my all-time favorite video game and easily the best argument for how video games are a legitimate art form like books and movies. But, I'll just say this right here and now, in both "Bioshock" and this story, the final word on Objectivism is that its full of shit and wasn't the perfect thing Rand saw. **

**And finally, the next two chapters are almost completely done and ready to be posted. Since I won't be waiting for possible readers before making this story an official M-rated crossover, I'll be posting these chapters as soon as they're ready. **

**So until the next chapter, please read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word! **


	5. First Steps

**Here we are the chapter five! Now that the teens have arrived in Rapture, what will they encounter and what will they have to do? How will they react to this world? **

**Let's found out in the fifth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": First steps**

* * *

Noah felt nauseous. Gwen felt like her stomach was in her throat and like she was being cooked alive. Courtney's head was spinning. Cody was immobilized with fear.

If you counted this season as one, all four of them had participated in at least two seasons of Total Drama. They had endured all manner of torture at the hands of Chris MacLean. They were proven to be significantly tougher than most teenagers could have been. However, this was something entirely…something they could never be ready for.

They had all just seen blood…they had all just seen murder!

All four of them had seen images and scenes of murder thanks to movies, comics, or video games. Gwen in particular was a fan of movies with high body counts and gore.

But this was different. In ways too small and countless to describe that added up, the scene that had played itself out, though partial obscured by the dim lighting, had horrified Gwen more than any horror movie, no matter how conveying the practical effects were. The other three, nowhere near as schooled in horror films, shared the same sentiment.

What had brought all four of them out of this stupefied state was the shortwave radio.

"_Would you kindly pick up that shortwave radio?"_ The Irish brogue from before asks.

Cody, being the nearest to it and seemingly recovering enough to compel his arm to move, grabbed it shortwave radio. When it was in his hands, the voice spoke again.

"_I don't know how you four survived that plane crash, but I've never been one to question Providence. I'm __**Atlas**__, and I aim to __**keep you alive."**_

Given their states right now, all four of the teenagers nearly cried in joy at hearing that. Literal seconds after seeing the most horrifying thing any of them had ever seen before, someone had appeared who was truly devoted to keeping them from dying like Johnny!

"_If my watch is correct, that bathysphere's door should be openin' in a second or two. Once it does, keep on moving ... we're gonna have to get you all to higher ground."_

As the machinery and gears stopped, the door began to hiss. Everyone stood close to each other, waiting for the glass door to open and waiting for the horrors outside. Cody and Courtney were the most nervous of them, and all four of them were very nervous.

After a mechanical grating sound and another metallic screech, the hatch opened. The glass door opened as it swung to the left. The only protection known to them was gone.

This was the moment Cody realized that this whole thing was real. He, his dream girl, and two others from Total Drama were here, in an underwater city called Rapture.

They all stared at the opening to the bathysphere, no one moved for over a minute. The first to move were Gwen and Noah. But that doesn't mean that they wanted to. No, there mindset was the same as wildebeests that must enter crocodile infested rivers while migrating, they knew it was dangerous and would likely die but they had to cross it. Otherwise they knew for certain that they would die. They started to cross the opening.

The two were about half way out when they turned around and saw Cody and Courtney not budging. They were feeling the same fear as Gwen and Noah but it was more visible.

After looking at each other, Gwen reached out for Cody and Noah reached out for Courtney. Both reacted with revulsion at the touch of their hands on their arms.

"W-wa-we…we…ca-can't…" Cody tries to say over his crippling terror.

"No way! I am not going out there!" Courtney shouts in absolute fright.

"Please guys, I'm sacred too but if we stay here with the door open we are as good as dead." Gwen says, her eyes getting glassy as her words' meaning was dawning on her. Despite the realization of her own words hitting her then, Gwen's voice didn't crack. But it came close, so close that if she had to say a single word more it would have broken.

"I hate to admit it but our resident Goth is right. There's no safety for us here anymore." Noah says shocking the other three with how comparatively calm his voice sounded. However, this was a deception, the Bookworm was just as frightened as they were. The only reason he didn't sound as sacred was his years of hiding beneath his sarcastic shell.

Seeing this confidence, if only superficially and compared to them, Cody and Courtney sighed in unison. They knew they were right; they had no other choice but to proceed.

The four teenagers slowly stepped out of the bathysphere, the slight difference in elevation between the bathysphere and the rugged ground felt like a fifty-foot drop now. They went through the door and expected the worst. Now, 'the worst' in a feral, strange alien place as this one appeared to be was to be far worse than anything considered 'the worst' in the tiring and taxing but comparatively merciful challenges of Total Drama.

* * *

"_Take a deep breath and step out of the bathysphere. I won't leave you twisting in the wind."_

As the teenagers heard the Irish voice, they were completely convinced of its sincerity. It was the only brightness in a world whose first impressions filled them with frightfulness.

The first thing to greet them was the air, full of oxygen but still seemingly stale. This place stank, mingling the scent of decomposing fish with that of mildew covered clothes and metal being rusted away into nothing by the relentless advances of seawater. Lingering odors of machine oil contrasted sharply with the taint of damp leather. These smells and other not yet known to them hung in the air, both diluted by time and fresh.

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah took the first of millions of fear-filled breaths now.

While doing so, their feet, bound in modern shoes of various styles, took their first steps. They stepped on the red carpet, meant to be a welcoming greeting but being the opposite. It was damp and old, pools of liquid had formed on it and exploded when stepped on. Near omnipresent dripping should have suggested that these pools were only leaking sea, just drops of seawater breaching the artificial edifice the city to reclaim space rightful its. But they knew that the red wasn't just the carpet and the liquid wasn't just the seawater.

They knew that their feet were walking over pools of blood from Johnny, pools of his blood. Their steps forced red trances of Johnny, another human being, on their shoes!

Even less than a minute after entering Rapture, it was already staining them in its horrors.

They realized that Johnny's body was no longer there because it was forced over the railing. That woman with hooks for hands had thrown his body into the callous sea. That thought, of the murder and being cast down into those murky depths, chilled them all.

It was only with their fear of remaining in this place overpowering their revulsion did they surpass the area that was in front of the bathysphere covered in Johnny's blood.

After passing through a brief bridge with rusted bronze railings, the teens were past it. On the other side of the narrow passageway, they found a large pile of very old suitcases. Between their disorganized state and the amount of water damage, it was clear that they had been left like this for possibly decades while their owners had abandoned them.

Why did they abandon them? Were their lives threatened without warning, like there's?

Behind the suitcases was a large glass cylinder. Inside it, the teens could see on the top and bottom what appeared to be some kind of electrical system. While not able to make out much of it, Cody imagined that these pieces would form a complete electrical current. He and the others had no idea what this thing but whatever it was didn't seem to be working. For some reason, Cody couldn't help but puzzle over the words on the top of the tube: **VITA-CHAMBER**. The meaning of the name and purpose of tube were lost. **(1) **

Not dwelling on this weird device for any longer, the four teens began moving to the left. Along the hallway, there were picket signs scattered all over the place haphazardly. While different in wording, the gist of all of these signs was perfectly expressed by one: **RAPTURE IS DEAD!**

And those signs were not the only examples of additional ominous foreboding. As shocking as it might seem, new and grim details came to the teens by a variety of senses. The first detail came from the sense of touch; they felt tiny bits of wall fall on their heads. The second detail was the smell of fecal matter joining the previously known musty metal smell. Finally, there was hearing the voice, like nails slowly scrapping a chalkboard, say, "Who can blame a lady who craves variety? Flowers with pedals of pale and bronze…"

They all realized what these details meant…that hook handed lady was here with them!

They all froze up, remembering what happened to Johnny. Though silent, Noah was the most alarmed. He didn't like that second part from her one bit, feeling like he and Courtney were the "bronze" while Gwen and Cody were the "pale". He was correct.

While remaining still, Noah only now realized that they were at a bathysphere station, approaching an adjacent terminal to the docks on which the bathyspheres entered and left.

"_We're gonna need to draw her out of hiding. But you're gonna have to trust me." _

The four teenagers looked at each other, as if looking whether they should or not on the other three's faces. Without saying any words, they had all agreed to trust this Irish man.

Atlas was the first one who didn't sound terrifying or terrified in this place. Something about that Irish brogue was comforting and commanding. He sounded like a protector.

And right now there was nothing they wanted or needed more than a protector. The proof of this came from the same raspy female voice saying, "I'll wrap you all in a sheet…no…I won't…I'll grow you four fresh flowers in my garden, like rosebuds…"

The sounds of pieces of wall being scrapped off by hooks and the smell of her likely soiled clothes became a stronger presence…she was getting closer, closer to killing them!

Putting their faith in this stranger, this Atlas, the four teenagers continued to step forward. After a few dozen difficult footsteps, they reached traveled up a stairway towards a fallen marble column, broken into several large pieces. As they reached the mass of marble, the teenagers noticed another sign in the ground next to it: **RYAN ****DOESN'T**** OWN US!**

"_Just a bit further ..."_ Atlas says. As he does, the lady's silhouette falls onto the floor!

With those hooks shining frighteningly in the partial light, the four teens panicked!

This had to be the end! Until…

Suddenly a green light was flashed on her, revealing her scary appearance to the teens!

In the few seconds that this woman remained within the revealing green light, the four teenagers had the details of her burned into their memories forever. Her body was covered in a full-body orange jumpsuit that was covered in dirt and her own feces. Despite what the teens first thought, she did have hands, which held the golden hooks.

Her brown hair hung in large filthy clumps around her face. Her eyes were a dull green. The other features that would be found on a normal human face were lost. What they saw were various collections of cancer like growths, thickened sections of skin, and uncontrolled lesions. Rather than a human face, they saw a welter of crisscrossing scars!

"…_how do you like that, sister?!" _Atlas shouts over the sudden blaring of a loud siren!

The moment Atlas had finished talking, a loud and irritating whistling noise was heard. Coming from seemingly nowhere, they saw a machine appear and start firing at the lady. It was the size of fire hydrant but blockier, resembling a boat motor that was turned into a miniature self-guiding helicopter with built-in machine guns. This is exactly what it was.

As the security bot whistled past on its whirring copter blades, the hook handed lady fled. She began climbing up a nearby wall and retreated into a large hole on the ceiling's right.

A few seconds after the lady was gone, the flying bot left and the security camera that had produced the green light returned to its normal white light-based surveillance mode. It continued to swivel above Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah, offering them protection. As it did, the four teenagers stepped over the debris on the floor with more confidence.

The teenagers just stood under the camera in shock, both from the robot's existence and the fact it saved them. Atlas saved them! He was the only one who could be trusted!

"_Are you kids, alright? Did those mechanical devils do their jobs?" _Atlas asks them.

Noah couldn't help but smile wryly as he commented in his mind on the scene that had just taken place as an example of _'deamon ex machina'_.

While Noah thought about this, Courtney grabs the shortwave radio from Cody and is unable to repress her emotion when she says, "Y-yes, they did! They saved our lives. Thank you Atlas!"

"_No problem, my bonny young lass. I wouldn't be much of a man if I had let that __**thing **__get you. But your welcome…uh, I'm sorry but I didn't catch any of your names…"_

"Oh…pardon us. My name is Courtney." The C.I.T. says before handing radio over.

"The name's Gwen." The Goth says to the radio before also passing it along.

"I'm Noah." The Bookworm reveals to Atlas before handing the radio to the last person.

"And I'm Cody." The Tech Geek says after the shortwave radio is back in his hands.

"_It's a pleasure to meet you all, I just wish it could be under better circumstances. I don't say this often but thank God! I'm glad there was a hacked security camera near you."_

A realization just dawned on Noah at hearing that. "Wait, can you see us!?"

"_Yes I can, boyo. Sorry, I should have told you this right away but I'm in a location that has allowed me access to some of the security cameras in this place. Also, I have your locations on radar and I can hear you though the intercom systems. I wish I could tell you where but there may be others listening to me who'd fancy my gaudy head as a trophy. Anyway, would you kindly all find some crowbars or something to defeat yourselves? Bloody Splicers sealed Johnny in before they ... goddamn Splicers!" _Atlas says in anger at remembering what happened to Johnny before turning off the radio.

Shuttering at remembering what happened to Johnny, the teens looked around. Sadly, there were no crowbars to be found. But Gwen did find something, a large wrench. While the Goth cringed at the thought of having to use it, she wasn't going to be letting go of it.

Seeing a pile of debris blocking a doorway, Gwen struck it with the wrench. It shattered.

* * *

Traveling up a small stairway, they saw through the opening at the top a small vestibule.

They all proceeded with absolute caution and fright, unsure where a threat might be. This was good since once Gwen reached the top of the stairway she had to duck instantly! If she hadn't been on full alert, the large iron pipe would have taken her head clean off!

Ducking just in time, Gwen avoided this fate but still found herself in grave danger. A man, at least, what was once a man, with a face resembling melting clay, charged her. Acting on instinct, the Goth brought the wrench to deflect a blow from the iron pipe. Seeming to be the quicker of the two, possibly because of a preexisting wound in one of the attacker's legs, Gwen brought the wrench down hard upon the attacker's left side. Despite the sickening crunch produced, the attacker tried to stand up to continue attacking Gwen. A lucky kick to the head of the attacker on his knees knocked him out.

Less than three seconds after the Goth had knocked out this attacker, two more came. One immediately ran for Gwen who tried to defend herself with her large wrench. The other ran towards the other three teens, with Courtney being the closest of them to him.

The C.I.T. was horrified, finding that everything seemed like a nightmare. But even so, she found something else within her as the gruesome man with the large rusted pipe ran towards her like a lion running towards a zebra. Seeing Gwen beat up the previous madman filled her with some confidence. Courtney mustered up all her strength and ran toward her attacker. She remembered her martial arts skills. Just as he would have struck, she kicked him right in the face. He was taken back by the strike, but recovered quickly.

"Oh you're dead, you little bitch!" Courtney's attacker snarled.

She prepared to strike again, but the madman caught her blow. Throwing her with a strength that seemed greater than his malnourished form should have been capable of producing, the madman slammed her face into the crumbling wall behind her. Courtney's kick had knocked the weapon out of his hand. Forgetting about that in his bloodlust, the madman rushed up to her and started to punch and kick her wildly while she was pinned.

Amid the blows being rained down upon her, Courtney turned to the others and screamed for help. Even her enormous ego had been, at least temporarily, subdued by this assault.

Cody and Noah were still just as paralyzed as before in the bathysphere, not being able to move and help her. Luckily for Courtney, Gwen had knocked out the other attacking madman by now. Running towards the mocha-skinned girl being attacked, Gwen leapt into the air mid-run. Unlike Courtney, Gwen didn't have any martial training or fighting skills aside from the most basic, the ones without any real skill or training behind them.

But she did have something that Courtney didn't… a kick that had stopped a real life psycho-killer-with-a-chainsaw-and-a-hook!

When one of those kicks hit right on the back of the attacker's neck, he went down.

After rescuing the person who Gwen was "friend-ish" with (maybe?), she went to see if she was ok.

Was she ok? No. Would she live? Most likely. She was covered in small bruises, and was bleeding in a few places, but it looked like she would be all right. She would need medical help. That thug really did a number on her. And Gwen didn't think that this place had any dependable doctors who would heal Courtney out of the kindness of their hearts.

It wouldn't be too long before Gwen saw how horribly right she was about the doctors!

But that's not to say that Gwen had gotten off scott-free from her two fierce fights. Some indirect strikes by the two attacker's weapons and her overall exertion were causing her midsection to hurt. However, the adrenaline rush from the fights was helping with that. But the Goth knew that this adrenaline rush wouldn't last for more than a few hours.

Assuming of course that she and the others would still be alive in a few hours, which looked increasingly unlikely. Even armed with a wrench and Courtney's martial arts, the two girls barely defeated three psychos who were clearly malnourished and injured. Not too mention that she doubted that either Cody or Noah would be useful in any brawls.

And it seemed like they'd have to endure many more fights to come in this place, in this Rapture. Psychos, rapists, and murderers were what awaited them, both in the next room and spread all through this underwater city. All four of them had reached this conclusion.

They all wanted to curl up and die right there. They all wondered what happened. How did this place exist? Why did they have to be here with these madmen and monsters?

Though all four of them were asking these questions and reaching these conclusions, Noah couldn't help but find him massive brain bring everything in its proper context.

'_So, its 2010, we were blasted out of an airplane, we found this hidden world below the sea that looks like its trapped in the 1940s inhabited by crazy people, Gwen picked up a wrench to defend herself against a psycho, she and Courtney barely defeated other two psychos, and its only been five minutes if even that…we are all going to die here, aren't we?' _**(2)**

Despite this realization, to Noah's great shock at himself, he tried not to think about that.

"Alright guys. I'm shitting myself and I feel like there is far worse than this to come. I'm not usually a team player but this time I think I can make an exception. We aren't going to last long if separated. We are all going to have to stay together at any and all costs." Noah says to the other three who nod their heads in agreement.

"Yes. We can't let this place get to us or split up." Courtney says, agreeing with Noah.

"An' what's da madder with splittin' up? Let's split ya by the seams!" A voice shouts.

They all turned and saw that another person, or splicer as Atlas called them, was charging at them. They were even more frightened because they acknowledged her voice and face.

It was the same one with the golden hooks for hands, the same one who killed Johnny!

With his fear overpowering the logical point that Noah just had, Cody ran down the hallway alone screaming as loudly as he could as the hook splicer chased after him.

The others would have perused him but two more splicers with blunt weapons appeared and were running towards the other three teenagers new to this world under the waves.

"We're all going to die here." Noah says, despite his earlier attempts to be optimistic.

* * *

**There you have it…the teenagers' first true encounters with the world of Rapture! I'm curious to see how you feel I portrayed their different thoughts and reactions.**

**(1) The Vita-Chambers are the checkpoints in "Bioshock". One of the main criticism of the game (which does have some weight to it) is that since there were so many vita-chambers, that enemies would remain damaged and exactly where they were when you died, and that very little in terms of health or eve was taken away…there was no real consequence to dying. Death was something that was a brief stumbling block at best. For obvious reasons, this had to chance for this story. While I might explain this later on, it's important enough to say at this early point. The majority of the Vita-chambers no longer look after over fifty years of decay. So while there are still vita-chambers and they will be a part of the story, there are few. This explanation might be appealed to the other machines from the first Bioshock. I'm not sure yet but it might be revealed that the majority of the other machines: the Circus of Values, El Ammo Bandito, Gatherer's Garden, Health Station, Power to the People, and U-Invent may largely not capable of use, making things harder. **

**(2) To avoid confusion, this story is set in the very distant past of 2010. The reason is because this is when TDWT, in particular the episodes of "You Jamaica Me Sweat" and "I See London" (which this story is set in between), were aired and since the conceit of Total Drama is that it's a recorded t.v. show you could argue that each episode matches its release date in our world. Its a tiny point but worth mentioning. **

**Anyway, the next chapter, which will likely be posted right after or very shortly after this one, is an important chapter for a few reasons that will be explained then. **

**So until then, please read, review, alert, favor, and spread the word! **


	6. Plasmid Charges and Popped Cherries

**Ok, here's the next chapter of this story! As I said at the end of the last chapter, this is an important one. Here are a few of the reasons why. It focuses mostly on Cody. It introduces one of the key Bioshock elements to the Total Drama teenage contestants. The full outline of this chapter was the first thing I thought of in terms of this story. And it ends on a massive reveal that gives you some idea of where things are going! **

**Having hyped this chapter up enough, here is the sixth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Plasmid Charges and Popped Cherries**

* * *

Cody wasn't thinking of the people he had left when the hook handed splicer appeared. He wasn't thinking of where he was going to run to or what he was going to do when he stopped running. He wasn't even thinking of Gwen being one of those he had left behind.

All Cody could think about was Johnny's blood rapidly spilled over the floor. All Cody could think about was how he didn't want to die by this lady's hooks like Johnny had!

He had entered a new room, what appeared to be a longue area that was meant to be a place where people arriving to Rapture could relax after their journey before continuing. However, as Cody entered this longue, him relaxing was the furthest thing from his mind.

And this wasn't just because of the crazy woman with the golden hooks chasing after him. He noticed that the door to leave this room had a broken control panel. Cody knew that he wouldn't be able to open this door and that meant he was trapped in this room!

But then Cody saw two staircases leading to an upper level. Being closer to it, he started approach the staircase on the right with as much speed as his smaller legs could generate.

As Cody was approaching a set of steps, his fear caused him to ignore a few details. The first was that along the wall over the stairs was a large and bizarre looking neon sign. It was in the shape of a giant human hand with its fingers extended and a bright pink outline. Coming from the fingers were three lightning blots with a bright yellow outline. Written above them and the hand in the same bright pink, as the giant hand's outline was a word that Cody didn't recognize: **PLASMIDS**. What in this new hell were plasmids!?

The second detail was an audio recording that sounded like a little girl was speaking it. That combined with the words being spoken added to the true surreal-ness of it all.

"_My daddy's SMARTER than Einstein, STRONGER than Hercules and lights a fire with a SNAP of his fingers. Are you as good as my daddy, Mister? Not if you don't visit the Gatherer's Garden, you are-n't! Smart daddies get spliced, at the Gardens!_"

Approaching the top of the staircase, which had lead to little more than a circular balcony, Cody saw the source of the strange voice. Even in his fear, he observed it.

The basic design reminded Cody of a vending machine but he'd never seen one like this. It was twice his height with the majority of it being a very dirty and dark purple color. On either side was the statue of a grinning little girl that was a tall as Cody was with four mushrooms sprouting from the ground in front of them. The girls and mushrooms were also purple and covered in grime. On the top of the machine was a tan circle with a lighter pink outline. Written within the circle in the same bright pink neon as before were the words: **GATHERER'S* *GARDEN*: GENETIC MODFICATIONS. **

But the most eye-catching feature was what was in the opening of the vending machine. It was a large glass jar and a needle pointing towards him with a glowing red liquid.

"Goin' for a pick-me-up?" A familiar and frightening shrill voice shouted behind him.

Having just enough time to turn around to face the hook handed splicer, Cody received a strong kick to his stomach that sent him flying backwards towards the Gatherer's Garden!

Being knocked back onto the machine, Cody felt something pierce his butt through his pants. His mind briefly flashed to the Amazon, to how his EpiPen should have been used. But that memory and the realization that the needle had been driven into his butt were not thought of for long as several new sensations entered Cody. **(1)**

The first, only taking up mere microseconds, was a plethora of transforming tastes. First there was the feeling of a thick yet bland fluid, followed by a taste that could would have been described as somewhere between salty and an aftertaste reflecting chemical waste. But then their came a new taste, one that would be endured now…the taste of blood.

That, however, could have come from Cody and not the liquid since Cody's teeth were now being unintentionally forced down hard onto his own gums from the intense pain!

His entire body had gone rigid. Every muscles and nerve flashed in horrible pain as Cody felt like he was being connected to an electric generator. Starting in his brain, an electrical current was violently forcing its way through all of his bodily tissues, burning him all the way in a way that didn't believe body parts other than the skin could burn. His muscles began to twitch and spasm in ways and to degrees that he didn't think possible. He heard his bones start to crack; thinking his spine would snap in half while standing.

Cody was at a total loss to try and explain what was making these waves of dark and hissing energy that were clawing away under his skin like rapid worms in the soil. He was terrified, even more so then he was of the hook handed lady that chased him here. The Tech Geek could all but envision his body being torn apart by this intense energy.

Cody's vision began to weaken, as faded pink would flash before his eyes constantly. Eventually that pink gave way to other colors flashing like the hearts of wielding arcs.

Though difficult to make out, Cody saw the hook handed lady charge at him again. He never felt more frightened. He couldn't move! He was powerless! **He was dead!**

Cody closed his eyes, not being able to see the scarred face of the one who would kill him. He was awaiting the pain, dreading the sounds and motions of the hooks' slicing!

But it never came.

Cody opened his eyes and found that his attacker was lying on the ground in front of him. He was clueless about how this was possible but couldn't speculate as to why now. All he could take note of was that her body was smoking and there were faint sparks around her.

A fresh round of searing pain forced Cody to examine his hands, burning under the flesh. Looking at his hands, Cody noticed that bright blue lines started to form there and began to extend along the lengths of his hands to his shaking fingers. His wrists were changing too but he couldn't focus on that, there partial blackening had nothing on the blue lines.

It wasn't until now that Cody remembered that he had the shortwave radio as he suddenly heard Atlas' voice speak to him from seemingly out of nowhere.

"_Steady now! Your genetic code is __**being rewritten**__-just hold on and everything will be fine!" _

Cody didn't believe him…he couldn't believe him! This pain could never be fine!

As the backs of his hands glowed in lines of bright blue, Cody stumbled backwards. The blue lines were revealed to not be limited to his hands as they started to bridge the gap between the hands and became connected. The connecting blue lines grew stronger.

His vision blurred even worse than when this nightmare he couldn't wrap his mind around had started. Even in his limited vision, Cody saw the small circular balcony ledge. In his pain and desperation, Cody acted on an impulse that under most circumstances would have been given much more thought.

To end the pain surging him, Cody leapt off of the balcony with a scream in his throat!

Before everything went black, Cody felt his body collide with the hard, unforgiving floor.

* * *

For a space whose length Cody could never guess…the blackness and silence ruled. Nothing was felt, nothing was thought. But then his eyes on their own began to fade in and out. With them doing so, Cody was given fleeting glimpses of this odd, mad world.

* * *

Cody saw two pairs of legs in front of his flickering vision in very old and dirty pants. One pair of pants was just walking up to him with a large and rusted metal pipe in his hand. That same figure leaned down next to Cody. He couldn't see his face but Cody did see his shirt was just as dirty as his pants and covered in random spots of dried blood.

"This little fish looks like he just has his **cherry POPPED**! Wonder if he's still got some **ADAM** on him?" The one with the pipe said, his voice producing a faint echo effect.

With the last words, _"__**ADAM**__ on him"_, repeating like an echo, Cody fades in and out.

* * *

When Cody came back to, he heard a faint, low rumbling from a source he couldn't see.

"You hear that? Let's bug!" The one who didn't have a pipe said while running away.

"Weak! You're a weak chopper! This little fish ain't worth toeing with no **Big Daddy. **Yellow! Always have been!" The one with the pipe angrily shouts at the fleeing one.

Positioning the pipe directly in front of Cody's face, the figure leaned on it as his face came into view. Most of it was covered in an old and dirty white cat-mask that covered his upper-face. But his mouth was seeable, dropping and deformed with broken lips.

"You'll be no better off with the metal daddy, little fish. See you floating in the briney…"

The figure with the pipe flees just the first one before Cody fades into blackness again.

* * *

As Cody briefly returned to the realm of sight as the same faint and low rumbling was heard. But this time it was louder. The ground started to shake, Cody was now scared.

A massive and heavy metal foot stepped right next to his face, almost forcing his body slightly into the air by the weight of the foot. Looking up, Cody only saw a series of small bright green lights where a head should have been. Hearing a deep groan-like sound, Cody saw that where there should have been a hand there was a giant power drill.

Possibly this time due to fright as much as physical exhaustion, Cody faded out again.

* * *

When he comes back to, the unknown and frightening metal creature is still beside him. But Cody hears a voice this time, a voice that sounds like the one from the machine.

"Look, Mr. Bubbles, its an angel! I can see light coming from his belly…" A small form says. It looked like a little girl with a dirty dark lavender dress and grimy, grey skin. He noted that she wasn't wearing shoes as her grey toes gripped the floor near his head. In her hand was a needle that looked to be roughly the same size that she was. Cody started fading in and out at a quicker rate as the needle was being slowly brought towards him.

* * *

After a few transitions between seeing and not seeing, Cody noticed that the girl flinched.

"Wait a minute, he's still breathing. Its alright, I know he'll be an angel soon." The girl says as she takes the needle away from Cody. Addressing the metal giant with her, who seems to nod his head, the two walked off as Cody once again faded into total darkness.

* * *

_Darkness. That's all Cody knew at this point. After the girl and giant, that's all he knew. _

_Complete and total darkness._

_Cody opened his eyes and looked around. He was falling into complete darkness._

_Where had he been? What was he doing?_

_Cody vaguely remembered a city under the sea and not laughing at the silly notion. He remembered seeing a man gutted like a fish right in front of him. He remembered running away from the others and feeling some pain as electricity was filling his cowardly frame. _

_That's when he started falling into nothingness._ _Was this all just a horrible dream?_

_He could have sworn there was a little girl, a man made of metal, a glowing red jar?_

_All of these things were right next to him but so far away at the same time. _

_He didn't remember anything else. He felt very tired. He felt very overwhelmed. _

_Cody wanted to rise to his feet and find the others but he couldn't… he felt like massive mountain peaks were weighting down arms and legs. He was helpless, powerless…afraid. _

_Yes, he was afraid. He knew this but hated himself for it. The others were afraid too. Courtney and Noah were both afraid. Gwen was…__**Gwen! **__He had abandoned Gwen! _

_While he was still and lifeless here, Gwen could be gutted like Johnny right now! _

_Though his eyes couldn't, inwardly Cody was shedding so many tears of disgust. He was now wishing that the pain he felt before this had torn him apart, leaving nothing behind! _

_But then Cody began to hear something, a sound more lovely the best music imaginable. _

"_**Cody! Cody! Cody, please wake up!" **_

_Could it be?…YES! YES IT WAS! IT WAS GWEN'S VOICE! __**SHE WAS ALIVE!**_

_As the voice from seemingly nowhere filled the endlessly black space around him, Cody felt again, he felt something happening in his body. _

_Cody felt something in the tip of his fingers. Some sort of tingling. Almost like they had been asleep but they were just waking up again. He had not been able to feel them before. The tingling swiftly crept along his arms, it was soothing and yet really uncomfortable._

_It continued to creep all over her arms into his shoulder blades while the backs of his feet also begin to tingle. He tried to move, but it didn't work. The tingling continued all along his legs until they met at his chest with the tingling coming from his arms._

_The tingling intensified as it reached his head. He could feel it as it made his insides tingle as well. Every organ, every vein, and every bone tingled uncontrollably._

_Grunting and squirming, Cody growled and tried to kick at the painful nothingness as the intense tingling transformed to searing pain all over, like taking a bath in hot lava! _

_As the pain intensified, Cody found that the voice, Gwen's voice, was calling to him. With his efforts increasing, Cody felt many paradoxes as great as one could logically imagine. His body was coursing with crippling pain but he never felt more motived than ever. Though he couldn't see anything but black he felt like he was in a shining radiant galaxy. Despite his body being nothing but pain and exhaustion, he was a living dynamo of energy. In the infinite cold, he felt a rolling hotness carry him over its euphoric crest._

_They all boiled down to one thing, one unquestionable fact that would guide him now. _

_As Cody found his surroundings becoming light, he knew what he must do above all else. _

_**HE HAD TO PROTECT GWEN AND NEVER ABANDON HER AGAIN!**_

* * *

_With the zeal of his holy mission within the bowels of this underwater underworld, Cody noticed a shape appearing above him. Its beauty was escaping his means of descriptions; Cody just marveled at the person that words like "beautiful" failed to match. _

_In this twilight world, Cody suddenly heard the voice of the little girl with grey skin. _

"…_**Its an angel!"**_

"Yeah, yeah she is an angel."Cody said, hearing his own voice for the first time in eons.

_Then Cody heard the voice of the figure with the pipe and the deformed mouth like melting clay. "This little fish looks like he just has his __**cherry POPPED!"**_

"No! I haven't had my cherry popped!" Cody says in fear for a reason he couldn't explain.

"Why am I not surprised?" Noah's voice said as Cody finally came to the world of the living. It was then, with everyone staring at him, that Cody realized what he had said.

What brought Cody fully back was the sound of the laughter his remarks had produced. While Noah and Courtney were unable to stop themselves from laughing completely, Gwen at least tried to cover her mouth with her hand, though that made little difference.

It hurt Cody to see that, Gwen, his dream girl, his angel, laughing at him. That combined with his guilt over leaving her and others in the first place as he tried to stand up. He found that he couldn't yet. While his head and arms could move, his legs still couldn't.

"YOU THINK YOUR ALL HOT SHIT, UH!?" A voice from none of them shouted.

Without warning, a crazed splicer charged up behind the three standing teens. He must have been running for some distance because the force of his impact was truly impressive. Courtney and Noah were sent flying and landed hardly on the wall on the room's other side. Gwen had been knocked a few feet to left of the standing splicer.

Cody watched the whole scene with a scale of horror that seemed to increase with every new development. While Courtney and Noah were moving, they were moving slowly. Cody still couldn't move his legs. The splicer was slowly approaching Gwen, who had her leg pinned under a large piece of rubble that fell on her when hitting the sidewall.

Gwen was trying to pull her leg out but she couldn't. Her efforts were more frantic when she saw the massive rusty pipe being held by the approaching splicer.

Reaching out his right hand through instinct alone, Cody shouted, **"GWEN! NO!"**

With his hand still held out and Cody feeling more emotion than ever before, he felt something; something that had never been described in the books of the surface world.

The rolling heat, the searing energy, came to him as he felt it gather within his hand. Within a space of time less than two seconds, sparks and flashes began to manifest.

Energy writhed in between his fingers as jerky blue lines shot. Electricity arched up, crackling as it did so, before being suddenly released as a flare of bright blue light!

It had happened in an instant and no one could have reacted quickly enough to stop it.

A pealing shriek came from the splicer as an extra-big bolt of blue-white struck him!

While not knowing it, Cody had released everything he could summon in that blast.

The effect this blast had on the splicer's body was dramatic and profoundly unsettling.

The splicer's body went rigid. His teeth sparkled blue, his hair stood up on end, his clothes were lightly set ablaze by small fires from the sudden and intense heat. The eye sockets smoked as they eyeballs made for them had been boiled out of his deformed head. His face contorted into a grotesque mockery of the faces that had died in peace.

The charge burst and the sparks had sent the splicer's body crashing into a wall behind it.

The hissing fat sapphire sparks had blackened the splicer's flesh and the wall behind it.

The once living and wrathful body was now nothing more than a limp, smoldering heap. A sizzling sound and the smell of ozone and burning flesh now blackened filled the air.

Cody's eyes widened so much that they threatened to burst out of his eyes sockets. Everyone else looked at him the same way. Their minds were reeling just like his was.

"What the fuck was that!?" Courtney exclaimed in shock, forgetting her polite manners.

Now being thankful to be sitting down, Cody looked at his hand as if he'd never seen it before. He examined the palm, the fingers, and the back of his hand with a focused gaze.

Cody felt as if he's been fitted with mental sunglasses, everything seemed slightly off. It seemed unreal; the space around him had almost become two-dimensional, like what had happened was happening to someone else on a different plain from him. Like a movie…

It just didn't make any sense, and not just the whole shooting electricity out of his hand thing! Cody was stunned and puzzled. He shouldn't be alive right now. For his body to have done that, his skin, his inwards, or both should have been horribly burned right now.

As he was contemplating this, he felt his legs again. He was able to stand up at last. Rushing over to help Gwen, Courtney and Noah stood up as they all met in the center.

Everyone was thinking the same frenzied thoughts when the shortwave radio turned on.

"_You all right, boyo? First time Plasmid's a real kick from a mule. But ... there's nothing like a fistful of lightning, now is there?"_ Atlas says.

"What the fuck is a Plasmid? How was that even possible!?" Noah loudly asked.

"_Imagine if you could be smarter, stronger, healthier. What if you could even have amazing powers, light fires with your mind? That's what plasmids do for a man." _Atlas says. The four teenagers were silent, dumbfounded for a few moments by this revelation.

"How is Cody not dead? That should have cooked him alive just now!" Courtney asks.

"_Good question, my bonny lass. Plasmids pack a mighty mean wallop on others but don't phase the wieldier. They make people like rattlesnakes, not hurt by their own venom."_

"But again, how is any of this fucking possible!?" Noah asked a second time.

"_Well, to be perfectly honest, I'm as clueless as you are. Even though I've been stuck here for who knows how long, I've never understood how they did half of these things. To you kiddies, the lady with the hooks and the flying machine and the fist lightning must all seem like something right out of some fairytale. But this is no fairytale; it's a nightmare. However, you get use to things like that down here soon enough."_ Atlas reassures them.

"So…that means I can shoot lightning out of my hand whenever I want to?" Cody asks.

"_Not exactly. It looks like you're out of juice. You see, you've just been infused with __**ADAM**__, but __**ADAM**__ doesn't have much use without __**EVE**__. It's the combo of __**ADAM**__ and __**EVE**__ that let's you use your Plasmids. I'll send you some __**EVE**__ hypos in the pneumo tubes at the door. But that will not be anywhere near enough for you to use for very long down here. As gruesome as I'm sure you'll find it, you have to get into the habit of searching the many corpses you are going to find in Rapture. Many will have not just __**EVE **__hypos but also first aid kits, food, and other things that you'll likely need. Remember, they don't need those things anymore. And they are probably better off than us sorry sods still stuck here. Make sure everyone gets some of that __**Electro Bolt **__before you move onward." _

As the teens waited for a few seconds, Noah couldn't help but comment on something in his mind, _'For a guy who claimed he doesn't believe in God, as he unquestionably did, Andrew Ryan has named a lot of this place with God in mind. Rapture? Adam and Eve?'_

The four teenagers heard some commotion from near the broken doorway. Examining the two cylindrical objects near the door, Noah and Courtney each found two needles with a glowing bright blue liquid inside of them and a label with the picture of a dark blue apple.

The four teenagers had a grand total of four **EVE** hypos, one for each of them for now.

"We've got the **EVE** I think. But Atlas, why would anyone make this stuff to start with?" Gwen asks.

"_Believe it or not, people would actually buy this stuff. As fantastical as I'm sure it sounds, down here in Rapture superpowers were as much a commodity as groceries." _

With that, the shortwave radio turned off and teenagers just started at each other in confusion. Superpowers were bought and sold! What the hell happened down here!?

* * *

As their minds were still reeling from that realization, Cody had brought down the **Electro Bolt**. The others were both impressed and frightened by what this would bring.

Noah, shrugging as he said, "You only live once, and probably not for very long here", was the first to take the plasmid with Courtney being the one would take it next and then Gwen would be the last of the four to be able to shoot electricity of out of her pale hands.

While waiting, Gwen noticed that Cody was looking at the splicer he had electrocuted. Walking over to him, the Goth noticed that his eyes were glassy as he was staring down.

Cody was breathing heavy and his body was shaking, his breath was increasingly uneven.

"I-I ki-killed…oh God." Cody started to say before collapsing onto his hands and knees. The Tech Geek puked slightly. "I… I killed… I killed him… I killed somebody! God." A few tears started to fall from his eyes, dropping into the small pile of puke he just made.

"You did," Gwen says, looked onto Cody with the deepest sympathizes as she came to his side, "what you had to do. He would have killed us all if he had the chance, Cody."

"I-I know…I know that but," Cody glances up at her, wiping his mouth. Gwen saw his jaw quiver and his eyes verge of new tears as he weakly muttered, "I… still killed him."

"You saved my life, Cody." Gwen says as she got onto the ground and pulled him into a comforting hug until he stopped shaking and his tears had stopped falling. Shocking him and herself, Gwen then kissed Cody's check as she said with a smile, "Thank you Cody."

The Tech Geek was stunned. Gwen, his dream girl, had not only giving him mouth-to-mouth but actually kissed his cheek!

**Gwen kissed him!** **For real**…kind of…**maybe today wasn't so bad after all!?**

While some sagging dread was still in Cody, for now it was vastly overpowered by feelings of bliss…and then shame.

"I'm…I'm so sorry for leaving you guys, for leaving you." Cody says with a heavy voice.

"Its ok, Cody. We're all scared. I know I am. But we all need to stick together to survive. Please…don't leave us again, ok?" Gwen asks in a very gentle and frightened voice.

Nodding solemnly, Cody said, "Yes Gwen, I'll never leave you guys ever again."

The Tech Geek then smiled at Gwen, who in return smiled back seeing him happy again.

"Very good. I'm glad to hear it. Oh…and it's okay Cody…" Gwen says before getting her mouth close to his ear to whisper the rest, "…my cherry has yet to be popped too."

After saying that and developing a smirk, Gwen stands up and walks towards the others.

Cody was unable to move; his face blushed so much that his head resembles a large bright red cherry. He was happy that he hadn't tried to speak because he wasn't sure if he would have been able to. He even pitched his cheeks to make sure this wasn't a dream.

As he was doing so, he noticed something that he had only briefly before. Amid the pain of his first Plasmid, Cody had seen his wrists changing but didn't pay it any mind then. Now that the pain was subsided, he could examine them in far greater detail. Assuming that it was some kind of side effect of the plasmid, Cody's wrists now had a marking. If he weren't in Rapture, Cody would have said that they were some kind of tattoos.

For you see, **Cody's wrists** now looked like they had **tattoos of** **black chains** on them!

* * *

**DUN-DUN-DUUUUN!**

**But does this reveal mean? If you've already played "Bioshock", then you know. If you haven't played "Bioshock", trust me, this is huge and will be very important! **

**And just to clarify, "cherry popped" is a way of saying having sex for the first time. When the splicer said it, he was referring to Cody using a Plasmid for the first time. But when Gwen said it, she was referring to the fact that she's a virgin, like Cody.**

**(1) This was actually the moment that had lead to this story's creation. While watching a video showing the protagonist from Bioshock take his first plasmid, my mind suddenly flashed to the episode of Total Drama World Tour with Cody and his EpiPen for some reason. I know this is strange but that's what came to mind. After that, I thought of what if Cody got that Electro Blot plasmid through the butt? Then I thought of what if Cody, in his hazy return to reality, shouted that his cherry hadn't been popped and that prompted Noah to make a sarcastic remark and have him and a few others laugh at Cody before discovering the earthshattering reality of Plasmids when Cody unintentionally kills a splicer with his newfound superpowers? And from there I slowly started to think up the idea of a crossover story between Total Drama and Bioshock, two very different properties that I greatly enjoy. **

**Now then, this chapter marks the last of the chapters written both for this story and the other two published the same day. It might be some time before the next one. **

**In the meantime, please read, review, favor, alert, and spread the word! **


	7. Death Has Reared Himself a Throne

**Ok, guys! I'm sure your shocked to see this chapter so soon but there's a reason for that. My summer job doesn't start until this Tuesday, leaving me a few more days than I had thought I would have. And since this was floating in my head, I decided to focus on this chapter instead of starting on the next chapter of "Mad Mikey". **

**Also, let me comment on something. Yes, I know the pace of this story is very slow. I mean, it's the seventh chapter and it likely won't be until chapter ten or eleven until we finally get out of the short intro level from "Bioshock"! However, given the fact that this world is very detailed and completely different from anything from Total Drama, I feel a certain duty to do it justice. And as this chapter will show, it's not just the place itself that's so alien to these teens; it's also what it forces them to do. The teenagers' reactions to Rapture, all of them, deserve full attention I believe. Also, I promise that once all of the key elements of Rapture have been introduced, I'll try and pick up the pace as much as I can while not giving up the atmosphere. **

**Having said that, here's the seventh chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Death Has Reared Himself a Throne**

* * *

The four teens were still in the longue to a place that should never receive visitors. They now all had taken the **Electro bolt** and were following Atlas' advise and searching the corpses. While there wasn't much, there were a first aid kids and some old potato chips. Gwen had suggested that Courtney be given the first aid kit for her minor injuries that she received fighting that splicer earlier. After a few moments' hesitation, the C.I.T. agreed. They were minor now but could get much worse very quickly in this place, in particular if they would be doing a lot more fighting…which it appeared like there was no getting around. So she used the contents of the kit and most of her minor injuries were healed. The chips were pocketed for the moment. No one had any desire to eat them but knew they likely would have to later. That didn't mean they were looking forward to it.

One thing that they were fruitful in finding was weapons. While Gwen still held onto her wrench, the other three had picked up the pieces of pipe their attackers had used on them. Like Gwen before, they cringed at the idea of using them but they wouldn't give them up.

They were taking one last survey around the room for anything worthy taking. All four teens quickly realized that they should try to search every room as thoroughly as possible. That one bit of food, medicine, or **EVE** that would save their lives could be anywhere. While they were doing so, Noah saw something and approached it with curiosity. It was a miniature of Rapture that appeared to be very old. Under there was a plaque that said: **RAPTURE NOV 5 1946 ONE MAN'S VISION-MANKIND'S SALVATION! **

Well that explained why this miniature, and whole city, looked so old. Because it was old! If what this plaque suggested was right, this place was **over sixty years old! **

Though this revelation shocked Noah, he didn't put too much stock into it now. He had others matters to worry about, like, not being gutted alive by psychopaths, for example!

Other than that piece of information, Noah had found nothing and returned to the others. Right as he did, Atlas reached out to the radio that Cody was still holding.

"_Have all of you fine laddies and lasses taken some of that __**Electro bolt**__?" _

"Yes we have. Our hands look like a bunch of Christmas lights. Now, how do we get out of here? The lock for the door appears to be not working, sparks are flying out of it." Cody asks.

"_Good question, boyo. But the answer is simple, send some sparks flying into it." _

"How would that help? Wouldn't just sending more electricity into it fry it up more?" Cody asks, even his understanding of technology told him that this idea was folly…right?

"_Anywhere else on Earth, yes. In Rapture, no. You see __**Electro bolt**__ isn't just for frying things. Many of the doors and machines down here that are on the fritz can have minor bugs temporarily repaired. Imagine you've got a mechanic coming out of your hand." _

"Are you sure about this Atlas?"

"_Trust me, uh, Cody, is it? Will the electricity at the door and watch it open for you."_

"Actually, Cody, if you don't mind. Could one of us try it? We need to learn how to use this before he need it." Courtney says.

"_The lass Courtney has got a point. Would you like to try and open the door, my dear?"_

Courtney couldn't help but smile at the approval from Atlas, whose assistance of them so far and his voice that projected some kind of odd authority that she couldn't explain, made his praise more meaningful than the ones from her teachers and guidance trainers.

Walking a few steps forward with a slight purposeful sway to her steps, Courtney was right next to Cody, who started to back away from what he knew was about to come. "Of course I would. A C.I.T. never backs away from a challenge. Here comes the lightning!"

Courtney raised her hand with the palm facing towards the destroyed door controls. Even seeing what Cody had done, she couldn't help but feel ridiculous while doing this. But that feeling went away at seeing the blue lightning dancing along her mocha fingers.

Despite her boast, the bolts of electricity weren't jumping towards the device. Courtney, though trying to not be, was getting increasingly annoyed with the lack of results.

She began thrusting her hand towards the door, trying to will all of her mental might to force electricity out of her hand. "Lighting? Go? Fire? Zap? Move? Jump? Shazam?" With every new word she would thrust her hand towards the door, with the same result.

Noticing the others looking at her with questioning stares, Courtney's annoyance had been transformed into full-blown anger. "God damn it, work!"

After a few more moments of increased cursing and unsuccessful attempts, Courtney fumed, "What the hell! How did Cody do it so easily before? I should be able to do this!"

"Oh yeah, because if there's any skill that says C.I.T. its shooting lightning out of your hand." Noah says with a small smile at seeing Courtney struggle and losing her temper.

Courtney would have shouted at him but Gwen beat her to the punch. "Shut it Noah! How about instead of firing off that mouth of yours you try firing some electricity!?"

Without saying a word, Noah took Courtney's place right in front of the broken door. Lifting his right hand, the Noah was silent for a moment then some lightning came out! The arc of electricity jumped towards the broken switch and created a shower of sparks. The giant metal door slid upwards, revealing a glass passageway surrounded by the sea.

"_Nice work, boyo!" _Atlas's voice was heard saying with s small amount of laughter. _"Now get a move on. The Splicers could be on their way." _

"Well, what do you know? Between my skills at running my mouth and lightning, I might be some kind of new age athlete?" Noah says to the others with a prideful smile. While doing so, Noah took the shortwave radio from Cody and began to walk away.

As the Bookwork proceeds into the tunnel, the other three teens are stunned and angered. Well, the only one who was truly angry was Courtney, who was fuming about Noah.

"You got to be kidding me! How is that that sleazy sloth is better at this than me!?"

Gwen placed a comforting hand on the mocha-skinned girl's shoulder. "Its ok Courtney. There's no need to be angry. Please don't let that jerk get to you. Your better than that." The Goth was both being honest and practical, realizing that she was going to need Courtney had her top game to have an even slightly likely chance of survival in Rapture.

"Yeah, Gwen's right. Its not shocking that your not use to these literally unbelievable powers. I'm sure with a little bit of time you'll be the best one out of all of us. Just remember, do you think Superman knew how to fly or use heat vision right from birth?" Cody adds while not being help but inject a little bit of his natural geeky self into it.

The scowl on Courtney's face had disappeared and she showed a look of gratefulness. "Thanks guys." But within a microsecond that changed to a look of partial fantasying. "But you just wait; maybe by the time we leave here I will be better than Superman?"

"Is it worth anything that I'm sure you already look a lot better in tights?" Cody asks.

The three couldn't help but laugh at the Geek's comment, reliving some of the tension. Courtney laughed harder than the other two at remembering being the Human Cricket.

Finding themselves in faintly better spirits, the three teens followed Noah into the tunnel.

* * *

The four teens found themselves in a small waiting room. But this confided space was more ominous than the previous rooms. Partly that was because it was lit only by red lights, leaving the teenagers covered either in unnerving darkness or bright blood red.

However the greater reason was because they found themselves trapped!

As soon as the last of them entered this room, the door they came through had been shut and locked. Also, they, appearing to be only capable of being opened from the other side by something else, couldn't open the door on the other side of the waiting room.

While the teens didn't like the idea of just waiting for something else to open the door, they had no choice in the matter. So, they spilt up into pairs and searched two alcoves.

* * *

Noah and Courtney searched the right alcove. The room was covered in blue-green light. Large glass windows were showing the magnificent buildings of Rapture to the two teens. Both of them, despite their very different outlooks, were thinking the same thing. They both thought about how the impressive façade of Rapture was a lie, about how those grand buildings and bright undersea neon signs were not right for a place like this.

Courtney found two more bags of likely repulsive potato chips on two red velvet chairs. Continuing to explore the alcove's side away from the windows, she found nothing else.

Noah hated water. It wasn't so bad when it was in a glass to drink, but he hated water when it was left to its own devices and he had to interact with it. The Bookworm hated being immersed in water. Just his luck that he was in a place surrounded by water. Or even better, his shoes and socks were now submerged beneath filthy discolored seawater. He had decided to look over the space near the windows and regretted it instantly. It seemed that the window was slightly cracked and a miniature waterfall was the result. But despite this, this side of the room would offer a better, thought sick, bounty to him.

Beneath the waterfall there was a corpse, a splicer with a face nearly fully decomposed. The Bookworm would have backed away instantly if not for the glowing rod between his legs. Disregarding any possible circumstances about offering more "proof" of being gay, Noah grabbed the EVE hypo between the dead splicer's legs. He would have back away right away if not for his brown eyes noticing something sticking out of his coat pocket. Struggling to keep himself from puking and his hand moving forward, Noah grabbed it. When he saw what it was, he felt some small relief. He pulled out a stocked first aid kit.

Getting back on his feet, Noah stood near the corpse, unable to move in deep reflection. Looking upon the almost skull-like face and the bright undersea skyscrapers outside that were modeled off of designs from and (from what it seemed) built during the 1940s, Noah couldn't help but remember the opening lines from Eager Allen Poe's _'The City in the Sea'_. They seemed so especially apt for this situation that it was truly unsettling…

'_Lo! Death has reared himself a throne…_

_In a strange city lying alone _

_Far down within the dim West, _

_Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best _

_Have gone to their eternal rest. _

_There shrines and palaces and towers _

_(Time-eaten towers that tremble not!)_

_Resemble nothing that is ours.'_

Noah didn't have long to speculate about this quotation's appropriateness in the silence.

The silence was broken as the sound of metal scraping against metal pierced the air. He tuned around just in time to see the sparks flying through the hallway he had just left!

The Bookworm looked at a frightened Courtney. They both knew what caused those sparks!

* * *

At the same exact moment that Noah and Courtney were searched for supplies on the right, Gwen and Cody searched the left alcove.

Gwen had found both another **EVE **hypo and another old bag of potato chips on an old dirty mattress. The Goth had also found a bottle of booze but chose to leave it alone, the last she wanted was to die because she got drunk.

On the other side of the room, Cody wasn't as successful, only finding a single **EVE** hypo in a trashcan. But Cody wasn't focused on that right now. Instead he saw another one of those things that he saw near the suitcase, he saw another **VITA-CHAMBER**. But unlike that first one he encountered, this one seemed to be working. Cody got a better look at it. There was a kind of hatch that was opened on the bottom of the chamber. From the hatch an arc of lightning shot up towards electrical diodes on the chamber's ceiling. The constant surge of electrical connecting the hatch and diodes bathed the left alcove in a milky green color. While eerie, it was preferred over the red lighting of the center room.

But Cody wondered something, though he didn't know why it was so important to him.

What was it that this **VITA-CHAMBER** did?

Cody didn't have long to speculate about this question in the total silence.

The silence was broken as the sound of metal scraping against metal pierced the air. He tuned around just in time to see the sparks flying through the hallway he had just left!

The Tech Geek looked at a frightened Gwen. They both knew what caused those sparks!

* * *

"_Splicer!" _Atlas shouted over the radio, reaching the same conclusion as the four teens.

"No, you think!? And here I thought they were a bunch of girl scouts selling cookies!" Noah says with his sarcasm dripped off of the words.

"Shut it Noah!" Courtney yells, not in the mood for Noah's automatic sarcasm.

_"Give 'em the combo; zap 'em, then whack 'em! The one-two punch! Remember, the one-two punch!" _

The instant when Atlas finished talking, a splicer raving about things that didn't make any sense ran towards Courtney and Noah with a metal pipe being dragged behind him!

Noah screamed, more high-pitched than he would care to admit to, and swung the heavy and rusted metal pipe. Due to his lack of experience in anything physical, his attack came too low, and instead of a blow to the forehead, he hit the manic splicer right in the mouth.

While clearly in pain, and no longer able to rant it seemed, the splicer attacked again. Easily grabbing the lightweight bookworm, he threw Noah against the cold metal wall. Stunned by the contact with the wall, Noah didn't realize for a few moments that he was coming at him again. Noah tried to fire some electricity at the attacker but it wouldn't come. The Bookworm was unable to focus enough in his fear to generate some sparks.

If he weren't already sitting on the ground, Noah would have collapsed. His fear and cynicism combined into a crippling coattail. What was the point? He knew what would happen. They were going to be killed by these monsters no matter how hard they fought.

He closed his eyes, awaiting the inevitable, him dying in this strange city lying alone.

With his eyes closed, Noah heard some faint sizzling before a sickening cracking sound. Even so, he couldn't process this; he knew his death was microseconds away from him!

But then the microseconds became real seconds. Noah realized that he was still breathing and that his feet still felt the ocean water making his socks cling to his feet. He was alive.

Opening his eyes, Noah saw why but he had a hard time believing it. He saw Courtney, with both her hand and the splicer's body showing some small sparks about to disappear. He also saw that her metal pipe was slightly redder, and it wasn't because of any rust.

Courtney had used the **Electro bolt** and killed him. Courtney had just saved Noah's life!

But that wasn't what amazed the cynical Bookworm the most, what did was her face. For someone whose face was normally a lovely mocha and brimming with self-confidence, this pale and overwhelmed Courtney was as stark a contrast as was humanely possible. Her face looked permanently frozen in a terrified expression complete with wide, staring eyes and brunette hair that was slightly disheveled. Every second or so, her left eye would give a spasm-like twitch.

Getting up, Noah noticed that her left eye twitching and her weakly mumbling to herself. While not an expert on it, to his reluctant self-admittance, Noah could reasonable guess that the willful C.I.T. was starting to experience a nervous breakdown right now.

Even though it made Noah sick with himself to admit it, he didn't want to see that happen to Courtney, especially after she had just saved his life despite his insults minutes before. Sighing, Noah was about to be something he rarely was and hated being…sympathetic.

After waving his hand in front of Courtney's face and this getting no response from her, Noah grabbed the taller girl with equally tan skin by the shoulders and briefly shook her.

The brief back and forth seemed to snap Courtney out of a kind of trance as she looked around as if seeing everything for the first time, including the recently killed splicer.

Seeing this brought back all of the thoughts that had immobilized her seconds before. However, maybe because she was experiencing them for a second time, they weren't as strong. The proof of this came from the words she was saying, that Noah could hear now.

"Th-th-this…this ca-can't…this-it can't…it can't be real…" Courtney weakly says.

"Courtney, for the first time ever in my life, I'm not trying to be blunt but this is real." Noah says, struggling to not unleash his normal sarcasm on the trembling C.I.T.

"N-no, NO! This can't be real! It just **CAN'T BE!** THIS CAN'T B-" Courtney started to shout, losing herself again to her fear until a loud **SMACK** filled the air and silenced her.

Both Courtney and the one who slapped her, Noah, looked at his hand with wide-eyes. It might have been that Noah was even more shocked at his action than the slapped C.I.T. Still fueled by the rush of thinking he was going to die, Noah had little patience now.

"Courtney! I was thrown against a hard metal wall and felt it. A splicer hurt you earlier. You surely felt the electricity as it pulsed through your arm, right?" Noah nearly shouted.

Once again, Courtney was silent. She everything Noah said was true but she couldn't believe it. Noah's more standard and abrasive methods failed to snap her out of this state.

Noah realized this and sighed. He wasn't use to making people feel better. But he was smart, and he quickly realized a possible way to get through to the still panicking girl.

"Ok, look. You're a consoler in training and you'd like to become a full consoler, right?" Noah asks, lowering his voice.

Courtney weakly nodded her head.

"Well, given the decaying state of schools, by the time you become a actual consoler many will be like this place. So, think of this as the training for a consoler, keeping three scared teenagers from coming mad in an undersea city with superpowers and psychos."

Courtney looked puzzled, trying to see the logic in Noah's line of thinking. Schools were becoming more feral but even so, Courtney logically knew they'd never get like this! But, for whatever reason, maybe because she wanted to cling to whatever, she nodded her head in agreement despite the dumbfounded look on her face. She was silent, thinking about something. Noah wouldn't have to guess what for long as she suddenly spoke.

"Yo-you really think I can do it Noah, get us all out of here alive?" Courtney asks. But her tone was soft and her face seemed to be unlike anyone had ever seen it before.

"Yeah, I think you can. As this place proves, stranger things have happened." Noah says, surprising even himself with how that wasn't a total lie to get this moment over with.

Courtney and Noah stared at each other for a few seconds. There was something that Courtney wanted to ask him, but couldn't find it in her to ask right now. Currently, she was thinking his eyes were actually quite friendly when they weren't rolling or giving that cynical look he was known for. They showed a humanity never seen in Noah before now.

Noah was also thinking too that Courtney had nice eyes, when they weren't squeezed into vengeful silts or showing a smug belief in her superiority. Her eyes weren't like that now. Instead, they were different; looking in a way he had never seen anyone's eyes like before. While they showed how competent and strong she was, they also showed a vulnerable and emotional side that no one, not even Duncan, had truly saw before.

"_This is getting unrealistically mushy_." Noah thought before breaking eye contact and the silence with, "Um, thanks for saving me Courtney. I owe you one."

"I'm sure you'll owe me a lot more than that before we get out of this place." Courtney says with a confident smirk, almost sounding like her normal take-charge kind of self. But then, her eyes and voice softened greatly as she adds, "And your welcome, Noah."

The two might have been tempted to have enough "unrealistically mushy" staring contest, they heard the pain-filled cries of someone before a sickening crunch and thud.

They two rushed over towards the left alcove, the source of the sickening sounds.

* * *

At the same moment that Noah and Courtney found the splicer upon them, so did Gwen and Cody. As the splicer ran towards them with its pipe dragging across the floor, it spoke to one of the two teenagers.

"Hello again little fish! Looks like the Big Daddy didn't think you were worth his time."

Cody was horrified; this was the same splicer who had stood over him while he was incapacitated earlier!

The Tech Geek raised him glowing blue hand to fry him but he was too sacred to use it.

As the sparks were off of the metal pipe being dragged, thus illuminated the splicer's figure even more in the milky green light, he noticed Cody's glowing blue hand.

"Ooh, the little fish got his hands on some **ADAM**… all the more reason to KILL YOU!" The splicer screamed as the leapt into the air and arced toward Cody.

Cody rolled to the left as the abomination flew past him and turned to the assailant quickly. But not quickly enough as he barely reacted in time to block his metal pipe. Even though the splicer's blow was blocked, the force knocked Cody off of his feet.

The splicer was running towards Cody when he suddenly stopped in an instant. The attacker was now glowing blue and paralyzed as a few thousand volts of electricity running through his body. The one who had electrocuted him, Gwen, rushed at the incapacitated Splicer and struck him across the back of his head with the heavy wrench!

The blood covered the ground as the splicer collapsed in a crumpled heap…dead.

Gwen seriously felt like puking as she stared at what she had done. Bile seemed to be in her throat, burning painfully, but she had her mouth clenched shut. Not to stop from throwing up, but to stop herself from screaming. But the mangled body remained, seemingly transforming into something even more gruesome as the realization set in.

Gwen had killed him. For whatever reason, the Goth had been able to knock out the few splicers before whom she fought off with her wrench. But now, she had killed someone. For reasons unknowable to her, Gwen's mind went to moments where she was teased in school, to how the popular would say that it was only a matter of time before she killed somebody since she was a death-worshiping goth who would likely drink others' blood.

While Gwen didn't worship death or drink blood, she couldn't help be think they were right. For all of her actual beliefs, Gwen had just committed the ultimate sin…murder!

She continued to stand there, staring at what she had done, until she hiccupped. Vomit came out in painfully hot spittle, but she didn't sink to her knees. Cody pulled her away from the body, saying words that the Goth girl couldn't comprehend, though they sounded soothing. Gwen then noticed that the world suddenly became a little warmer and softer. The Tech Geek had pulled Gwen into a very tight hug and was not letting her go.

Gwen's mind flashed back to her previous encounters with Cody, and how she hated them. True, she never truly hated Cody but she was not into him and he never got that. Even now, even in this unbelievable hell, Gwen was sure that Cody still lusted after her. Anytime before this if Cody had hugged her, he would have gotten a kick to the nuts. For the first second or two, Gwen considered this idea simply out of forceful old habits. But then Gwen realized the warmth of Cody's body against hers and how nice and safe it felt, especially in the cold metal world of Rapture where the sun's rays would never reach her. Then Gwen realized what she had done for Cody a few minutes ago, hugged him when he had crossed a threshold into the reality of a murderer. He was returning the favor now.

For now, Gwen wasn't worried about this fanning Cody's obsession with her or not. All Gwen knew or cared about was that she needed someone with her, even if it was Cody.

Courtney and Noah rushed over. Based on how Gwen was and the dead splicer who was slightly smoking, they quickly pieced together what had happened in this left alcove.

The mood was solemn; there lives had been threatened more than five times and three of them had killed another living person…even if they were psychos and in self-defense.

Cody put into words what they all now realized in a sorrowful tone fitting for them all, "We're going to have to kill a lot more to make it out of here alive, aren't we?"

For a few seconds, no one answered him. All of them, even Cody, knew the answer.

Then Noah, also acting as a kind of Greek chorus for the crew, replied with the answer, "Yes, Cody. I think we are."

After Noah finished speaking, no one spoke for a few minutes. The door that the two splicers had entered this room thought was closed. They would have to wait for another to open it on the other side. The teens didn't mind; no one was in a big hurry right now. They were still horrified by the words from Noah that they all knew were to be true.

* * *

The four teenagers waited by the door, knowing it wouldn't be long until the chance came. Seeming to not want to disappoint them, Rapture proved for them another splicer. He was saying some gibberish that was cut off when Noah hit him with his **Electro bolt**. While the splicer was briefly stunned by his agony, Noah brought his pipe upon his head.

Unlike the first try, Noah hit his intended target and the splicer fell to the floor…dead.

The teens stepped over the corpse and crossed through the doorway leading to the next room, to the next horror. As they did, the teens were also crossing a grand metaphorical threshold. All four of the teens from Total Drama had now used a plasmid…and killed another living person. All the while knowing they'd have to do both many more times.

Being the last one to leave the room, Noah took one look at what they were leaving behind. There were four dead bodies, as four living bodies left…an odd but fair trade. What was odder but in no way fair was the city itself, still viewable out of the windows.

Taking in both the buildings outside and the dead bodies, Noah thought about the next lines from Poe's _'The City in the Sea'. _Again, it seemed Poe could see this place…

'_Resignedly beneath the sky _

_The melancholy waters lie._

_No rays from the holy heaven come down _

_On the long night-time of that town; _

_But light from out the lurid sea _

_Streams up the turrets silently — _

_Gleams up the pinnacles far and free — _

_Up domes — up spires — up kingly halls —'_

Noah turned around and left the room. But even as the door closed behind him, the Bookworm knew that he and the others were not truly safe. They were still in Rapture.

They were still in the city under the sea, where death has reared himself a throne…

* * *

**Ok, there you have it! All of the four Total Drama characters are now murderers. Yay! :)**

**But in all seriousness, I'm curious to see how you thought I handled their reactions. One of the hardest parts about this type of story is having the innocent characters having believable reactions to the horrible and truly impossible things around them. Please let me know about them and anything else in this chapter that you like. **

**Ok, now, this is going to seem like me repeating myself but it's the truth this time. It will be quite some time before this story gets another update but know that I'm working on it and thinking about. **

**In the meantime, please read, review, favor, alert, and spread the word! **


	8. Baptism by Fire

**Hey guys! I know, this contradicts what I said at the end of the last chapter but I PROMISE that this will be the last chapter that I publish before my summer job. **

**Anyway, this is very short chapter. If I wasn't planning for the next one to be the longest for this story yet and introducing at least three major elements of Bioshock, I would have just this be the start of said much longer chapter to come eventually. **

**Having said that, here is the eighth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Baptism by Fire**

* * *

With their minds still heavy from the fact that they were all now technically murderers, the four teens were relived to find that the large door lead to a staircase and then an open atrium. While still trapped in Rapture, the much larger space helped them deal with it. The general design of this room was the same as the others, just one a much larger scale. Two features caught their attention the most. The first was an elevator system on the other side. The second was a series of banners of either red or green that had single words in large letters, clearly being key idea behind Rapture: **ASCENDENCY! LIBERTY! CREATIVITY! INDPENDENCE! COMMARCE! **

A few of the four contestants from Total Drama noted how those things didn't seem to be here, maybe they were at some point over sixty years ago but they certainly weren't now.

As they slowly made their way through the room, the four teenagers focused on the first feature, the elevator system. And not just because they wanted to use the elevators, either. Also, coming from the elevator system were the frantic cries of another male splicer. That and in of itself would have gotten the teens' attention but there something about this one's voice that struck them as odd: why did this disfigured human sound so scared?

"T-tell Ryan I'm sorry! I won't do it again!"The voice echoed from above, near the top of an elevator shaft. "No… no, please don't do that! Oh please no, NO!"

An elevator at the top of the room exploded and fell towards the ground! The impact caused the contraption to ignite and the teens to instinctually shield themselves from it. But thankfully for them, their distance from it and a metal door blocked the great blast.

Far less fortunate was the splicer who had been trapped in the exploding elevator. The proof of this came when said male splicer came running out of the burning wreckage!

His entire body was ablaze as he ran screaming through the room flailing his arms wildly as he ran towards the teens. They were unsure if he was actually trying to attack them. It didn't matter since within a few moments he fell to the ground, his body still burning brightly as the flames bathed his already disfigured body in their red and yellow embrace.

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah had watched this entire with at first fear of the burning splicer attacking them before that feeling was replaced with pity and disgust for his fate.

Almost mesmerized by the flicking of the flames that almost seemed alive, they reflected. They thought about how this proofed that death was already a common occurrence here. Them coming here did not bring death to this place; it had established a throne long ago. While not wanting to think about, they realized that this helped sooth their sad minds. It made the burden of knowing they would have to kill many in Rapture a little bit easier. In some ways, most in this city were already dead, just not yet but it would claim them eventually, whether because of the teens trying to escape or them destroying themselves.

Not wanting to dwell on this for long, the four teenagers sidestepped the flaming corpse. They made it to the elevators and hoped that at least one of them somehow still worked. Luckily, though not in a total sense since they were in Rapture, an elevator still worked. Once they were all inside of it, slightly cramped for space in the elevator meant for one, Cody pressed the button and the elevator started to climb upward, slowly but steadily.

While rising in the elevator, the shortwave radio, once again in Cody's hands, began to crackle to life. After presenting it for all four of them to hear, Atlas' voice was heard.

_"Listen- I've got a family. I __**NEED**__ to get them outta here. But the splicers have cut me off from them! If you four can reach them in Neptune's Bounty, a fish market not far from where you are now, then maybe…__**just maybe**__** …"**_Atlassays before stopping with a heavy sigh. Then he continued speaking, his voice became softer and more open. _"I know you must feel like the unluckiest kids in the world right now, but you're the only hope I'll ever see my __**wife and child**__ again. __**Go to Neptune's Bounty ... find my family ... please."**_

The four teens looked at each other, unsure about what to say. This place was shocking enough but for there to be people who weren't murderous psychopaths was another thing.

Cody brought the radio to his mouth. "Atlas, without you, we all would have been dead the moment we got to this crazy place." The Teck Geek's mouth becomes a smile. "Don't worry, we'll find them. We'll get them out here and reach the top together, right guys?"

To the shock of some of them, the other three teens nodded their heads as they said yes.

_"Cody… you and the others are good men! Uh, or ladies…"_

The teens laugh. After this baptism by fire, anything that made them laugh was welcomed. Once the elevator reached the top, laughs would lessen while the flames would grow. They could only hope that the flames would not consume them.

* * *

**There you have it. Like I said, that was a very short chapter! I can keep some promises, anyway. :) But in all seriousness, the next chapter will likely be sometime down the road. Both because of this summer job which I can't seem to stop talking about and because the next chapter introduces most of the remaining big Bioshock elements: guns, ghosts, and audio dairies, and two very special types of enemies. **

**Until then, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word! **


	9. Horror

**Author's Notes: Hello everyone! Well, here's the next chapter! **

**I have some other things to say here but there's something else which I MUST say first…MY STORY IS ON TV TROPES! Yes, thanks to a fan (who will remain anonymous unless he/she doesn't mind me revealing who they are), this story is one of the eight crossover stories among that website's recommended TD fan-fics! Words cannot fully express how unbelievably happy I was to discover this news! :) **

**For those of you who don't know, TV Tropes is a wiki website in which many examples of entertainment (films, novels, plays, tv shows, professional wrestling, video games, anime, manga, comic strips and books, fan fiction, and other websites) are analyzed for the underlying tropes in them expressed in a humorous manner. For a while now, I've longed to have one of my stories recommended by this website. And now it's happened! Maybe I'll get another story there or even an entire page for this story or another one of mine. I hope so but we'll just have to wait and see. **

**Having gotten that awesome news out of the way, here are a few more things. **

**As you can likely guess, this goes against what I said at the end of the last chapter. What was originally going to be one chapter will likely be four, five, maybe six. **

**Also, based on this, I'm going to stop trying to make predictions about how long it will take to get the next chapter up and how long that said next chapter would be. It seems like I'm always wrong with this story. **

**I'll save my further comments for the endnotes. But I'll say this much, this chapter has both as very memorable scene from the game and an implication that will become pivotal later on. What am I talking about with these things? Let's find out! **

**Here's the ninth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Horror**

* * *

After two or three stories, the elevator finally came to a stop and the door slid open. The fifth floor in the giant chambers was nothing more than a balcony that stretched thirty feet to the left. A few yards ahead and to the right was a hallway with a high ceiling that the teens couldn't see well.

Climbing out of the elevator, there eyes were drawn to a unusually sight viewable from the large balcony they were standing on. They saw a giant golden statue of a human arm with its fist clenched to a golden chain, creating the illusion of it pulling on the chain.

Similar to the one over the golden bust of Andrew Ryan seen in the lighthouse, there was a banner of red fabric with letters and piping in gold thread hanging above the golden arm and chain. The message was: **THE GREAT CHAIN IS GUIDED BY OUR HAND**.

Once again, the four teenagers were confused as to the meaning of this statement. Cody was even more so than the other three, as he stared at the black chain tattoos now on his wrists. He wondered if there was a connection between them and this "great chain"?

Cody didn't dwell on ideas such as this for more than a few seconds, he and the others had bigger problems to worry about.

Looking to their left, the teens noticed something against a closed metal gate. They saw a framed black and white photograph of a man's face surrounded by flowers. But not just any flowers, they were lilies, the flowers of death. Furthering this idea was a small plaque that said: **Winston Hoffner. **After looking over this sight with sadness, the teens noticed a few other things surrounding the photo: a Pep Bar, a first aid kit, and a teddy bear. Somehow the teddy bear's presence added more sadness for them. Remembering Atlas' words about the dead not needing these things, they took the first aid kit and the Pep bar.

Maybe they would help them not end up like Winston Hoffner?

* * *

They didn't have long to ponder this as a faint and strange tune started to fill the air. Turning to their right, the teens saw a marquee bathed in violet lights. At the center of it was a neon sign with giant pink letters advertising: **KASHMIR RESTAURANT**.

Approaching the entranceway to this Kashmir Restaurant, the teens saw and heard more.

"When your daddy's in the ground, mommy's gonna sell you by the pound."

It was a Splicer, definitely female, singing a broken version of _'Hush Little Baby.'_

"When your mommy's up and gone, you're gonna be the lonely one."

The four teenagers simply looked at each other, not believing what they were seeing. As they made their way down the hall following the fading in and out of the strange tune, the four teens had found a shadow that took up most of the left wall. It was the shadow of a woman standing over a baby's carriage, but the woman's figure was slightly disfigured.

"When you are the lonely one, no one will be there to sing this song..."

The splicer's shadow constantly fidgeted with the carriage, almost as if she was playing with a baby inside. With simple stares and hand gestures, the four teens decided that they were going to kill this splicer while she was distracted by whatever was in the carriage. After a few rounds of silent rock-paper-scissors, Gwen was selected to kill this splicer.

"Hush now…Mommy's gone…and daddy too."

The Splicer stopped singing and Gwen watched as the shadow turned its back to the end of the hall where she was hiding. Gwen silently crept into the hall, sneaking up on the splicer as she began to ramble quietly with a voice mainly curious with an undertone of franticness. She sounded like someone who was confused and torn emotionally asunder.

"Wait…this is happening before and not…why aren't you here?"

Feeling a little pity, even if she couldn't understand why, Gwen continued to proceed.

"W-Why is it today and not then when you were warm and sweet?"

She slowly approached the splicer singing to whatever was in the baby carriage. With every step, her tenseness increased and her thoughts became more focused and Meta.

'_There is absolutely no reason to treat this like a horror movie, Gwen._' The Goth girl kept trying to convince herself as she struggled to slowly advance behind the splicer.

"Why can't mommy hold you to her breasts and feel your teeth?"

'_Although… if it was… you're that dumb girl slowly going towards the obvious danger, the one you always said was an idiot, and that she was going to die first._ _She's the warning, normally the slutty bimbo, the one who goes first to show how evil and bloody the movie gets… no, stop it! I'm not slutty or a bimbo! And this is not a horror movie!' _Gwen continued to think to herself as the gap between her and female splicer decreased.

And the Goth's efforts would prove just that, this wasn't a horror movie. It was worse!

"Oh no, no no no no…"

As Gwen crept closer, the splicer started to cry. For the Goth, this was shocking. She never would have guessed that things as savage as these splicers could be so sad. But even so, Gwen continued to descend upon the crying splicer facing the stroller with her back to her the entire time. Gwen was going to kill this splicer with a hit from behind.

When the Goth started to enter striking distance, the splicer turned around to face her! Her heart skipped several beats! The other teens were rendered powerless by the shock!

But they were not as shocked as Gwen was. Normally, this would have been because of the white and dirty porcelain rabbit mask that this female splicer was wearing. But that wasn't why Gwen was so shocked…more shocking was that she wasn't attacking her!

The splicer stared at Gwen for a few seconds and turned back to the carriage. She continued to cry, seemingly in her own little world shattered to pieces by a past trauma.

Though she wanted to, Gwen knew that she could not let the splicer go, lest she come back later in a different state of mind. It all felt so wrong and vile but it had to be done.

As Gwen brought the heavy wrench down, the splicer gave her last, heartfelt words.

"My poor little girl…"

Gwen struck the back of the splicer's skull and the splicer was instantly killed. She fell limply to the floor with her mask sliding across the floor, exposing a very deformed face.

The Goth breathed a small sigh of relief, having finished the job. But there was more.

* * *

Despite her inner-horror movie aficionado screaming at her not too, Gwen approached the baby stroller with curiosity. She had to know what was in the carriage, why the splicer was so distracted by its own despair to attack Gwen when she was right here.

Coming from that love of horror movies, Gwen's mind was active with imagining sickening possibilities for what could be in this baby carriage. Was it a baby with red eyes and pupils like serpent's slits? Was it a severed baby's head? Or a baby's bones?

She looked into the stroller. Gwen gasped and took a few steps back while unblinking.

Gazing into the baby carriage, the Goth felt numb inside, like this stroller was the abyss! Words couldn't describe fairly all of the horror filled thoughts pulsating in her brain. Even with her knowledge of horror movies, nothing could have prepared her for this.

Instead, Gwen simply stood there for a few moments, unable to move or say anything.

Both confused and concerned, the other teens approached Gwen and saw what she saw.

They saw a baby carriage with an inside covered in blood and a **revolver** where a baby should lay! This splicer was singing to this cold piece of metal as if it was her infant girl!

Even with them all just killing someone and seeing a man burn to death, this proved to be the most disturbing moment that the four teens had experienced so far within Rapture!

All four of them were so focused on the sight before them that they nearly screamed in surprise when they heard Atlas' voice call out to them all over the shortwave radio.

_"You all right their kids, what's goin' on?"_

Cody, barely being able to speak, replied to Atlas with, "W-we've found a gun, I think."

"_Great, boyo! Please pick up that gun then and check the ammo, would you kindly?" _

Despite how much it repulsed him, Cody reached into the carriage and retrieved the revolver. Finding that it was fully loaded, he tucked the gun into the back of his trousers and retrieved the radio. However, when he did so, Gwen took it from the Tech Geek.

"Atlas…wha-what happened down here? To these people, to Rapture…to everything?" Gwen asks in a voice weakened from shock and fright.

_"I can't give you a proper history lesson 'cause you all ain't safe yet… but I will tell you this, lass: Plasmids changed everything. They destroyed our bodies, our minds… we couldn't handle it. Best friends butcherin' one another, babies strangled in cribs. The whole city went to hell."_ Atlas' Irish voice answered full of woe at remembering this.

With those words, in particular the part about babies because of the crib-like stroller before them, the four teens from Total Drama decided to move beyond the baby carriage.

They didn't make it more than a few steps before Gwen asked Atlas another question, "What about us? We've all used a…uh, Plasmid…so will we all **start going insane too**?"

The other looked at the Goth in horror, realizing that she was right about this. After all, they all had altered their DNA, they had spliced. So would they become splicers too?

"_I know you don't want to hear this but I haven't the foggiest. It's been ages since I've seen anyone go crazy before my eyes, I couldn't tell ya the likelihood of you going mad. I won't lie to you, uh, Gwen, you or one of the others might be rendered insane by the Plasmids. But trust me, you all need those Plasmids. There are things more dangerous and frightening than splicers down here. As long as you all take it slowly and use them sparingly only when needed, you'll hopefully be fine." _Atlas says solemnly in reply.

These words didn't boost the confidence of any of the four teenagers. Even so, they were all glad that Atlas had said them. To survive, they had to know everything they could. It was much better that Atlas was straight with them instead of sugarcoating the situation.

Still haunted by the demented lullaby of the splicer, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah entered the front doors of the Kashmir Restaurant, which parted for them automatically.

* * *

**And there you have it. As you can guess, the memorable scene is the splicer singing the twisted lullaby to the pistol that is the first gun the protagonist gets in Bioshock. I hope I did this scene justice. **

**In case it's not obvious, the "implication that will become pivotal later on" is the fact that the teens are at just as much risk of going insane from the ADAM and plasmids as the splicers they fight are. One of the things I never understood with Bioshock is why it was that the protagonist didn't seem to be affected in the same way as everyone else by the Plasmids. True, there is a way to make a reason but its kind of flimsy and I don't really buy. Besides, that possibility, that one of if not more of the four Total Drama contestants could go insane adds so much potential to this story! **

**Be rest assured, at least one of the four teenagers will be rendered mad in this story. While that might seem like a spoiler, it's not when you pause to consider the questions that come from that which I'm not going to tell you. Will one person go insane or more than one? Which one or ones will go insane? How will they get to that state? Will they stay in that state? Will they recover from it? If so, how? If cured, will there be any psychological effects? Or will they be killed by the others? **

**The next chapter is already mostly written and might be posted later tonight. **

**Either way, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word! **


	10. Charlie and Brenda

**Author's Notes: Hello again! As promised, here is the next chapter of this story!**

**After the long author's notes for the previous one, I'll keep this one short and sweet. **

**This chapter sees the teens, specifically Cody, dealing with having to use a gun. Since a vital gameplay mechanic in Bioshock is the use of guns along with Plasmids, this can't be avoided if this is to be a true crossover. However, none of the four teens have ever used a real gun before. Let's see how the first attempt to use one goes. **

**Here's the tenth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Charlie and Brenda**

* * *

They stopped for a moment after entering to study the place they had just entered.

The Kashmir was in horrible condition; blood, dirt, and rubble littered the restaurant's floor. Party hats and masks were littered about throughout. More noticeable than that, though, were two signs, one a poster and the other neon. The poster had a picture of a man wearing a bunny mask just like the one the splicer "mother" had worn. It was promoting a masquerade ball to celebrate the New Year. The neon sign was a large circle the size of the teens, proclaiming what New Year this was: **HAPPY NEW YEAR 1959**.

This furthered what Noah had discovered earlier, that this place was over sixty years old! For the other three, though, this was new news and they were properly floored by it.

After looking at each other, they disregarded this and started to search the restaurant. As they did, they noticed that a horribly familiar tune was playing through the speakers. While upbeat, it was the song, _"If I Didn't Care"_, which that first splicer had been humming when she gutted Johnny. The teens cringed at remembering that first horror.

Noah had already begun the search. It was he who first realized this place's layout.

The eatery was split between two levels with the four teenagers currently on the second floor. To his left was a balcony overlooking a large eating area with a strange fountain/statue of Andrew Ryan in the middle. The floor was slightly lower that the rest and covered with three inches of water as no one has shut off the fountain for some time.

Near the edge of the balcony Noah found another first aid kit on a red velvet chair. There was nothing else of value up here, whatever was before had been picked clean already.

While the others searched, Cody couldn't help but stare at the pistol in his hands. He marveled at the weight of it. Before this, the closest he had gotten to this pistol was the paintball gun that he had held but never used before being mauled by that bear on TDI. Even then, that gun was mostly plastic with only as little metal…and it fired paintballs. He'd never held a real gun before. He didn't know how heavy their metal weight was. Something he did know, thanks to him checking the gun's ammo, was that it wouldn't fire paintballs. It would fire bullets…real bullets that would maim, and wound, and kill.

Similarly to when he picked up the pipe from a splicer (which he hadn't used yet), Cody cringed at the thought of using this gun. Would he even be able to use it? Would he find it within himself to pull that trigger and bring that tiny metal hammer upon the bullet? And just as importantly, if he did, would he able to have the bullet actually hit the foe?

For all of his knowledge of technology, this was one piece of tech he knew nothing of. He felt the same sense of fear and dread that some elderly people feel using a computer. Cody's mind dreaded him having to use it while knowing that he would have no choice.

As the teens decided to travel down a set of stairs leading down, that time for Cody came.

* * *

While traveling down the stairs, to what was actually the fourth level of this building, the four teens heard something; they heard an argument between a man and a woman. The man was banging angrily on closed doors that lead to the Kashmir Restaurant's kitchen.

"You really did it this time Brenda! I'm not some kinda sap! You want this ugly or do you want this nice? I can do it either way. Open the damn door!"

From the other side of the door, the teens, still standing on the stairway unnoticed by this male splicer, heard a woman splicer bark at the man splicer in a very venomous tone.

"I'll do what I want, Charlie! It's my **ADAM**; I earned it!"

Despite the fear in his belly, Cody decided that it was time to test his skill with the pistol.

With his hand shaking, Cody tried to aim the gun's barrel at the distracted splicer's head. Nearly closing his eyes from the shock of the pistol's recoil, Cody fired at Charlie's head!

The bullet completely missed, it wasn't anywhere near Charlie.

'_Clumsy!' _Cody shouted angrily at himself for his failure.

As Charlie was turning his head to face the teens at the top of the stairs, Cody fired again.

The bullet, while a little closer, still failed to hit Charlie.

'_Pathetic!' _Cody says as he scolded himself mentally once again for his failure.

Charlie had noticed the teens and was rushing towards them. As started to turn the bend that would bring him to the bottom of the stairway, he shouted, "Give me my **ADAM!**"

Cody fired again, doing better by actually hitting Charlie, his right shoulder anyway.

'_Doddering!'_

With Charlie at the bottom of the stairs, something started to awake within Cody. What it was he couldn't explain, it was as if his body was entering an autopilot, acting on its own. His hands shook less then time when Cody pulled the trigger at the charging Charlie.

This shot actually made Charlie stop in his tracks. But only for a moment because Cody had blown off three fingers from Charlie's left hand.

'_Helpless!'_

At a total loss to explain what was happening to him, Cody let the autopilot take over. With his mind calmer than it ever should have been in a situation as dire as this, Cody allowed his arm to angle itself and his finger to push down on the pistol's trigger again.

For a very brief second, it looked like Cody was successful as Charlie stopped totally. But then Cody realized why, he had shot Charlie in his throat…again missing his head.

Staunching the blood from his neck with his nearly fingerless left hand, Charlie kept charging at Cody while still trying to scream about how the **ADAM** Brenda had was his.

'_Useless!'_

Cody had all but given up when suddenly Charlie froze while his body glowed bright blue. Turning his head to his right, he saw Gwen with her hand extended and fingers sparking. His dream girl had used **Electro bolt** to save his life…for the second time.

Well, technically, it wasn't saved let since Charlie, despite being in crippling pain, wasn't dead. The teens could guess that the **Electro bolt** would likely wear off very shortly.

But Cody wasn't going to make them have to find out. He raised the pistol yet again. His breath was deep before stopping for a few moments. Sweat started to drip from his pores. Still holding his breath, Cody fired the last of his pistol's bullets at the paralyzed Charlie.

Finally, the bullet found its mark. Charlie developed a single red poppy between the eyes. As the blood started to pour out of the bullet hole, Charlie fell onto his back on the stairs. Thanks to the basic gravity of his elevation, Charlie fell backwards and rolled downward. The steps his body had fallen onto until before hitting the floor had faintly mangled his limbs.

The teens stood in shock at the display, Cody more so than any of the others. He had, after more attempts than he would have preferred to admit, just shot a person to death.

Even so, Cody found himself turning to face Gwen as he says, "Thank you, Gwen."

The Goth (despite her natural tendencies) smiled at the Tech Geek. "Your welcome. But its not needed Cody. As odd as this sounds for a compliment, it was you who shot him."

Despite knowing how messed up that sounded, Cody couldn't help but chuckle at that. He hoped that whenever he had to use this gun again, he'd focus on that instead of the killing, the fact that Gwen was still alive and able to make witty comments like that.

Of them, the first person to react to Charlie was Noah, who started searching his corpse. He found nothing but ten crumbled up dollars that had Andrew Ryan's picture on them. Noah counted nine one-dollar bills and a twenty-dollar bill. The Bookworm logically assumed that they were the currency of this place. **Rapture dollars**, if you will. Despite not thinking they would be of any use, Noah put them in his pocket anyway out of habit.

When he looked up, he noticed the others looking at him like he had grown an extra head.

"What? We didn't search the last five corpses we saw. We can't afford to forget that." Noah says, slightly irate at why the others were so puzzled by his searching of Charlie.

Cody, Courtney and Gwen might have answered Noah if not for hearing something.

"Charlie? Charlie, where ya gone!" Brenda's shrill voice from behind the door shouted.

The locked doors opened and the teens saw a female splicer wearing a white cat mask. While the teens couldn't see her expression, they guessed that she saw Charlie's body.

"NO! Charlie!" Brenda shouted in shock and anger as she raised her pistol at the teens.

Acting quickly, the teens broken off and each took cover as Brenda fired at them.

Cody would have attempted to fire but he had used all six of his pistol's bullets already.

Noah, thinking quickly, shouted at two of his fellow teens that were slightly closer to Brenda. "Cody, zap her! And Courtney, whack her! Remember, the one-two punch!"

Despite his fear, Cody leapt out from behind the cover and hit Brenda with **Electro bolt!** As the Tech Geek was using an **EVE** hypo to get ready if needed again with some difficulty, Courtney leapt like a tiger from her hiding spot towards the frying Brenda. Leaping into the air, Courtney brought down her pipe on Brenda with all of her might!

Brenda collapsed to the ground with her head smashed in like a rotten watermelon.

The Type-A Girl was breathing heavily, still in shock over killing someone again. The others slowly came out of their hiding places after that realized that Brenda was dead. Courtney was staring out into space, possibly because of her starting to lose it again.

However, she then felt a hand fell on her shoulder. Looking to her right, she saw Gwen. Seemingly slightly surreal, Gwen was actually smiling again (no doubt a new record for the Goth who normally fought hard against smiling), proud of Courtney's success. The C.I.T. smiled back, thankful that she was able to save these people and help them get out.

While Gwen comforted Courtney, Cody searched Brenda's corpse. He found fifty-six Rapture dollars, nine rounds of ammunition for a pistol, and the pistol she had used. After a few moments of debate within the group, the second pistol was given to Noah. While the Bookworm had never held a gun before, he had read a few books about how they work. He was hoping that would be enough for him to learn how to use one quickly.

After giving Noah four of the nine pistol rounds Cody had found on Brenda, the four teens entered the kitchen that she had locked herself in. It was appalling to say the least. It was barely lit and every visible surface was covered in thick grime, blood, or both.

Not wanting to stay in this crammed space for every long, they searched it quickly. Gwen had found another seven Rapture dollars. Courtney found another **EVE** hypo. Cody found a first aid kit. Noah didn't find anything, and didn't have much desire to here.

They found another doorway that opened automatically. They eagerly crossed through it.

* * *

**And there you have it. Cody's first attempt with a gun was successful…eventually. **

**Also, for those of you who don't know, Charlie and Brenda are unique splicers. What makes them unique is that, aside from Rose (the female hooked handed splicer, or spider splicer as will be revealed later, that was the first one seen), these are the only two splicers with individual names who have no effect on the story whatsoever. So it seemed oddly fitting to name this chapter after this crazy quarrelsome couple. **

**And these two show a very insightful observation. Even in a hell on Earth where the laws of nature have been rapped, where society and sanity have fully crumbled…the endless, bitter arguments between men and women in relationships will never die! :) **

**Anyway, the next chapter is partially written but I'm unsure when it'll be posted. **

**Until then, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word!**


	11. Blasts from the Past

**Hi everyone! We are at the new chapter! Before staring, I need to say two things. **

**Firstly, since he has given me the ok to do so, I'll reveal that it was CMR Rosa who added this story to TV Tropes' recommended Total Drama fan-fictions page! Again, I can't thank you enough for that man! :)**

**Secondly, this chapter introduces two key elements of Bioshock. You'll know them once you get to them. I'm curious to see how you thought I handled these elements. So, in your reviews please let me know if you think I could portray them better, ok? **

**Having said that, here is the eleventh chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Blasts from the Past**

* * *

Crossing through the door, they had found themselves near the broken fountain that Noah had seen from the upper level's balcony. Much of the floor beyond them was flooded. That wasn't something to worry about…but the five splicers searching though it was!

Standing a slightly elevated piece of dry ground, they stared out at the splicers worriedly. They had struggled to take on a few at a time. They didn't think they could beat five. Well, maybe they could but they didn't want to take that chance unless they had too.

But then, Noah had an idea…an awful idea. Noah had a wonderful, awful idea.

Slightly raising his hand, Noah fired a blast of Electro blot in the direction of the splicers. Though, it wasn't aimed at the splicers directly. Noah hit the water they were standing in!

The effect was instant as all five of the splicers' bodies began to spams in pain. The arching blue electricity actually jumped from one splicer to the next, adding to the effect. Within seconds, all five splicers were lying facedown in the water, not moving at all.

The other three stared at Noah, who couldn't help but show a proud smirk on his face.

"Dude…that was awesome!" Cody almost yelled in happy approval.

"As morbid as that was, it also kind of beautiful." Gwen says in less bombastic approval.

"Indeed. Well-done Noah. How did you think of that?" Courtney asks in wonder.

"Chalk that bit of brutal brilliance to hours upon hours of playing violent video games." Noah says, feeling far happy than he showed that he could say that with genuine pride.

Normally Courtney would have had some kind of remark about how Noah was wasting his time doing that. But after seeing what Noah just did, any such remarks were unused. Instead, Courtney found herself truly impressed by Noah's intellect.

Waiting a few seconds for the electricity to die down, the four teens entered the water. Searching the five splicers proved to be a massive boon of useful items and supplies. They had found three **EVE** hypos, about thirty Rapture dollars, three Pep bars, a bag of potato chips, and seven pistol rounds.

Having done that, they started searching the tables surrounded by water for more supplies. They weren't nearly as fruitful, being mostly just covered in rotten bits of food. But one table did have an **EVE** hypo…and two other things that were of great interest.

The first was very large handbag, which Courtney picked up and placed around her arm. Courtney then asked everyone to place everything on the table expect their weapons so it could be given out evenly with some of it going in the large handbag she had just picked up for later use. The others saw her logic of having something to carry their stuff in. Everyone placed everything they had collected so far in Rapture on the table before them.

So far, their checklist ran as follows: four first aid kits, twelve **EVE** hypos, seven bags of potato chips, four Pep bars, 112 Rapture dollars, and 16 pistol rounds. Cody and Noah spilt the pistol rounds right down the middle. Everyone got one first aid kit, three **EVE** hypos, 28 Rapture dollars, a Pep bar, and a bag of potato chips. The excess potato chip bags were put in Courtney's handbag.

Having that sorted out, they turned their attentions towards the second item of interest. It was rectangular with a large speaker and a few buttons labeled 'record', 'stop', and 'play' taking up most of the face. It looked like a tape recorder, only larger and a bit bulkier.

Curious, Cody pressed the button labeled 'play', and sounds emitted from the device. The first sounds were the screeching of some gears within the device that was coming back to life. A second later though came sounds that couldn't have come from the device alone.

* * *

**(Audio Dairy: New Year's Eve Alone-** **Diane McClintock)**

_The sounds of a roaring party are in the background, with the jazz song "And All the While I'm Loving You" playing. Despite this feisty atmosphere, there's a loud sigh._

"_Another New Year's, another night alone. I'm out, and you're stuck in Hephaestus, working. Imagine my surprise. I just guess I'll have another drink..." _A woman in her thirties says with a voice dripping with disappointment for an unknown person and self-loathing.

To Noah, her voice sounded like that of someone who occasionally pretends to be an intellectual but is really a naïf, a person of working class origin who was using the silted chic diction of movie stars…like a Tanya Williams pretending to be a Myrna Loy. **(1)**

_Her voice changes to one of mock praise as she "toasts" herself. "Here's a toast to __**Diane McClintock**__, silliest girl in Rapture. Silly enough to fall in love with Andrew Ryan, silly enough to-"_

_Diane McClintock's mock toast was suddenly cut off as a massive explosion is heard! _

_The once festive atmosphere quickly descends into total chaos. The recording was indistinguishable for a few moments from what sounded like screaming._

_Amid the screaming, two shouts were barely auditable following one right after the other. _

"_Long live Atlas!"_

"_Death to Ryan!"_

_The yells faded as Diane's voice returned to the recording. "What... what happened... I'm bleeding... oh, God... what's happening..."_

* * *

As the machine shut itself off, the teens stared at each other in total confusion. Noah took the shortwave radio from Cody and pressed the button to become connected with Atlas.

"What the hell was that, Atlas?" Noah asks in confusion.

"_That, boyo, is what they call a __**audio dairy**__, it's just an oversized tape recorder. They were meant to be a way for the people down here to record their 'thoughts and impressions of life in Rapture'. They said 'History must have its due!' They pushed this because of some kind of planned historical retrospective, to show the future generations how Rapture became the perfect society. Surely the world would look at Rapture in wonder and want to know how the starting point for a new and better direction for civilization got started and what happened there. Imagine the farce in that silly notion!"_

'_Well, it's not too farcical, many groups, like the Nazis, had similar grand aspirations.'_ Noah thought to himself as Atlas continued to info the teens about these audio dairies. **(2)**

"_Anyway, I can't give you a history lesson of Rapture but maybe these audio dairies can. If you find one, if there are no splicers around of course, give it a listen to, would you kindly. Some of them may have vital info for making it out of here alive. And even those that don't will hopefully give you some idea of how this nightmare came into existence." _

As Atlas' voice left, the teens agreed with him. These audio dairies may prove vital!

* * *

Placing the audio dairy back where they had found it, the teens searched the rest of the flooded floor. There was nothing else worth taking, only inedible food and old party hats.

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah discovered a doorway, which they couldn't open. The doors looked like they had either been welded together or there had been a big explosion. Either way, the doors were all but fused together and impossible for the teens to open. But even that aside, the doors being literally completely covered in blood, some of it fresh, and the dead bodies of two splicers (who had nothing worth taking on them), were enough to have made them not want to enter this entranceway anyway.

Above these doors was a sign with blue neon surrounding the words in yellow neon: **FOOTLIGHT THEATER. **But that alone was not enough for them to try to enter it.

As they walked past the doors to the Footlight Theater, they noticed an advertisement on the wall. It had a picture of the audio dairy like the one they had just finished listening to. But instead of "audio diary", this poster called the recording device an **ACCU-VOX. **

After walking away from the poster, they agreed that they would call them audio dairies.

They found a stairway heading upward, hopefully to another part of the upper level they were originally on that would lead them out of here. As they made their ascent, someone approached them screaming…and firing a pistol. It was a male splicer, shooting at them.

Acting on instinct amid the terrain lacking cover, Cody fired some **Electro bolt** at him. As the splicer convulsed in pain, Noah aimed his newly required pistol at him and fired.

The first shot grazed his right shoulder. The second shot went right into his head.

As the splicer fell down dead at the top of the stairs, Cody felt a strong sense of shame. Noah did with only two shots what it took him six to do…save all of their rear ends!

Gwen seemed to notice this as she nudged Cody while saying, "Nice job with the **Electro bolt** Cody. I guess your far better with Plasmids than you are with guns."

The Tech Geek smiled at the compliment from the lovely pale-skinned girl. Even so, Cody couldn't help but realize that Gwen was right…he was far better with Plasmids.

"Oh sure, praise him when I'm the one who actually killed the wacko." Noah groaned.

As Noah complained to her, Gwen searched the male splicer's corpse. There wasn't much, only his pistol, which had only four bullets left after the two he had fired at them. Sighing at this annoying inconvenience, Gwen took the pistol anyway and pocketed it.

Searching the area at the top of the stairs, Cody found a series of large payphones. At the base of one of these payphones were a first aid kit and ten Rapture dollars. He took both.

But the Tech Geek couldn't help but marvel at the primitive yet interestingly alien technology that was these bulky payphones, especially the rotary dial of the phones. Placing a single finger in a hole matching a number on the finger wheel, Cody dialed his phone number, smiling and finding far more amusement in that than he would ever admit.

The others noticed this. But Cody didn't notice that until he turned to see their faces with questioning glances.

Chuckling a bit despite his awkwardness, Cody answered their unasked questions with, "Uh, I've always wanted to do that, to use a old-fashion phone dial that you spin."

Noah looked at Cody even more confused but Courtney and Gwen looked at him with faint smiles, finding amusement in his simple desire. That made up for Noah's look. Heck, simply having Gwen smile would have been enough. She had a beautiful smile.

Cody couldn't help but stare at that smile, wishing to see it more often, and resolving to do whatever he could to make it happen, especially within this grim, nightmare world.

"If we are done marveling at the child-like pleasures of Cody, can we get a move on?" Noah asks.

Despite the Bookworm's unpleasant tone, the others, even Cody, agree and move on.

* * *

But there wasn't much else to move onto. At this part of the upper level to the Kashmir restaurant, cut off from the part of the same level they were at before, there was only one place to go aside from the phone booths…the restrooms.

There was no door for either restroom, only a pathway to each one for the different sexes. Even just looking at the entranceways, the teens could tell that they were in horrible shape. The amount of what they really hoped was just dirt and grime was truly colossal. Highlighting this further, the filth was emphasized by two small light blue neon signs.

On the left was one in the shape of cartoon man with a style based in the 1950s (when it was built) and it being labeled **GENTS**. And to the right, was another bright blue neon, this one in the shape of a woman based in a 1950's cartoon aesthetic labeled **DAMES**.

The teens were unsure as to which one to investigate first, for what they had no idea.

"Um, ladies first, I guess?" Cody weakly suggests in a voice conveying befuddlement.

The others either nodded or shrugged their shoulders as they went into the ladies' room.

* * *

As Cody followed the others into the ladies' room, he noticed some changes around him.

_Suddenly everything around him appeared to dim, to become even more diluted looking than it already was after sixty plus years of decay under the ocean. Similarly, all of the sounds around Cody were becoming distorted, transforming into a kind of loud static. _

_Once Cody was inside of the bathroom, the diluted surroundings became fully fuzzy and the static noise rose in volume to be pounding on his eardrums without pause or mercy. _

_Then, over one of the sinks, bits of black and white that were forming and disappearing appeared into a shape. It was the vague shape of a woman, likely a fairly young one too. _

_Cody couldn't believe what he was seeing. Whenever he tried to turn his head, parts of the shape would branch off from it and remain within his gaze, never allowing him to fully look away, never allowing him to escape the impossible sight revealed before him. _

_Then, adding a whole new level of horror for Cody, the shape, the woman shape spoke. _

"_**I'm too spliced up. Now nobody's gonna want me…"**_

_As "she" said this, the shape had "her" head in "her" hands standing over the sink. _

_With that, the image of "her" standing over the sink in shame, the female shape vanished. _

_Everything remained diluted and drowned out by crippling static for a few more seconds. _

Then, just as quickly as it had begun, the diluting looks and static sounds disappeared.

* * *

Cody looked at the ladies' room after rubbing his eyes, truly seeing it for the first time. As they dreaded, it was terrible! Massive amounts of what they were really hoped was dirt was found on almost every surface. There were three sinks that seemed to be broken. There were four toilets in stalls with none having any doors. But shockingly, it seemed like at least one of the toilets still worked even after sixty of Rapture going to hell. Of the lights in the ceiling, only one worked. And even then, it flickered on and off while only illuminating the front half of the restroom in which Cody was currently standing now.

None of that was what Cody first acknowledged. That was Gwen trying to talk to him.

"Cody? Cody? Hello, Earth to Cody, what is going on with you?" Gwen asks the Tech Geek right in front of him while shaking him slightly.

This appeared to do the trick because Cody suddenly shook his head as his eyes widened.

"Wha-What the Hell was that guys!"

"What was what?" Gwen asks, confused by Cody's sudden shift in demeanor.

"You didn't see! You didn't see the woman, fading in and out!? Or hear the static?"

"No, we didn't. Nothing like a woman was in this bathroom. You must be seeing things."

"_You got that right, lass. And what, uh, Cody, right, likely just saw was his first __**ghost**__."_ Atlas' voice is heard saying from the shortwave radio on Cody's person.

Taking the shortwave radio and bringing up to his mouth, Cody asks Atlas, "Wh-what do you mean, "ghost"? Is Rapture haunted!?"

"_In a way, boyo, yes. These ghosts are not from the afterlife…they come from Rapture. What these ghosts really are are the leftover memories of someone else who previously used one of the __**EVE**__ hypos you have used. By using it, some of their memories were passed onto you through the genetic sampling involved when using the __**EVE**__ hypos. Sometimes when passing by a place or object that they did, you see and hear them. In a sense, you __**relive a memory**__ that was never yours to begin with looking from the outside." _**(3)**

Cody's mind was blown by this idea…seeing and hearing another person's memory! Another one of the teens was just as shocked, but more vocally negative about the idea.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Time out, Atlas! Are you telling me that someone else's' thoughts are fused into us as if they were a guy's HIV from shared heron needles!?" Noah asks.

"_I don't know what HIV is but I'm sure that's what its like, boyo. Don't worry though; these ghosts can't hurt you. Try to think of them as harmless, brief visual audio diaries." _Atlas' voice says before signing off the shortwave radio. **(4)**

Still reeling from the implications of these "ghosts", the teens searched the ladies' room. They didn't find much, only a two boxes of bandages and medical tape behind the working toilet. As Courtney reluctantly picked them up and placed them in her large handbag, Noah couldn't help but comment on the site with his cynical wit on display.

"Yeah, I'm sure those are so sanitary. Why don't we just dip our wounds in the toilets for good measure?"

Before anyone could rebuke the Bookworm, they noticed another audio dairy surrounded by a large pile of rubble that appeared to be from the broken up wall directly above it.

After pulling it out of the rubble, Courtney played it for all of them to hear its contents.

* * *

**(Audio Dairy: Hole in the Bathroom Wall- Steve Barker)**

"_Hey, Brenda!" _A man's voice, likely in his forties with a slightly Bronx accent, says._ "You care to tell me why you've had a hole in the wall the size of Plymouth Rock coming out of your crapper going on three weeks now? Now, I ain't saying I'm Shakespeare, but I'm trying to run a respectable theater. I got working folk coming in from Port Neptune trying to catch a little diversion... and all they can think about is the stink coming out your shitter. Get it fixed."_

* * *

After the audio dairy shut off, the teens quickly put it back on the bathroom's filthy floor. They looked at the walls and didn't find any "hole in the wall the size of Plymouth Rock". So, logically, it must be in the men's rooms, a way out of the Kashmir restaurant!

Quickly leavening the ladies' room, the teens traveled into the men's room on the left. As the entered it, they noticed a streak of water from the wall flowing onto the floor.

The men's room was more or less like the ladies' room with a few notable differences. It was fully illuminated by working ceiling lights. None of the toilets seemed to work. There was nothing to take. One of the toilets wasn't in its stall but against the wall on the other side of the room. Oh…and in that toilet's stall was a giant hole larger than a man!

Seeing red carpet and rubble from whatever created this hole on the other side of it, the teens left the Kashmir restaurant through this most peculiar of ways…even for Rapture.

Crossing through this huge hole, they discovered the entranceway to a new location. They were standing on the slightly destroyed second floor of a miniature theater, the **Footlight Theater**, they assumed…correctly.

Looking down, they saw a large glassed-in seating area and stage. And that wasn't all they saw.

They saw two figures. One was lying on the floor and not moving, probably dead. The other was sitting near the first doing something they couldn't see but didn't like at all. However, what was more unnerving than the unknown activity of the second figure was what they could make out about the identity of this figure…a she…she was a little girl!

* * *

**Ok, so, that's the next chapter! I'm going to keep most of my other comments here to a minimum because I have four footnotes that I feel the duty to explain to you. **

**As you may have guessed by now, this game is full of historical references. The creators of this game created such a rich world in Rapture that is fused with so many elements from America during the decades of the 1930s to the 1950s. Being a history major, I have a deep love of history and try to inject it wherever it fits. But I know that many are not as well versed, so I'll try to explain the references I'm sure almost no one would get otherwise. That's what the first two footnotes basically are. **

**(1) Diane McClintock's Audio Diary portrait (which the teens and you can't see since the actual audio dairies don't have pictures on them) is based on the mugshot of Tanya Williams, a woman working at the Melody Lane club in San Francisco, arrested in 1942 for "indecent entertainment." And Myrna Loy is a Hollywood actress who despite being in movies since before 1920 only really took off as a star after staring in two very different movies from 1934 in which she stared with actor William Powell. The first is **_**Manhattan Melodrama**_**, a crime melodrama most notable for being what gangster John Dillinger saw before being gunned down by ****G-men on July 22, 1934 leaving Chicago's Biograph Theater. The second was the comedy-mystery film, **_**The Thin Man**_**. She's better known for this role today. **

**(2) I almost didn't put this in here for a very noteworthy reason, whenever someone says, "Its like what the Nazis did"; people tend to automatically shun it, no matter what the actual point trying to be made is. And while I can understand this view, it means that bringing them up for any reason except blunt condemning is difficult. However, the basic idea behind the audio dairies, leaving a tangible record for what is believed to be the glorious start of a new era of human civilization, is exactly what the Nazis did. That's the reason why they kept such detailed accounts of the Holocaust and how we can create an outline for it which almost every single source, whether it's the census data made possible by BM Hollerith punch card machines or first-hand accounts of Nazi soldiers who put the bullets in the victims' heads or lead them into the gas chambers, agree on. Just like the audio diaries in Bioshock, bits and pieces here and there nevertheless come together into a unified, agreeing whole. **

**(3) I realize that I'm deviating from the canon of Bishock by having Atlas telling the teens what exactly these "ghosts" are. After all, in the game we don't learn this info until a few levels later thanks to an audio dairy. However, in the game, the protagonist was a character who never talked and therefore never asked questions. But the teens would naturally ask questions about all of the crazy things in Rapture. Plus, considering what Atlas' plans are, he'd want to help them understand them in order to survive as much as possible. As these chapters so far hopefully show, I'm going out of my way to copy the game as much as possible for this fan-fcition. However, there are going to be some moments, where because of basic logic or the differences between the game's context and my TD premise, I must change or move around some elements in terms of when they happen and when they are revealed. Despite that, please know that I'll be going out of my way to do that as little as humanly possible in order to preserve the amazingness that is Bioshock's world. **

**(4) Remember, Atlas, and the rest of Rapture, has been totally isolated since 1946. Therefore, he would have no idea what HIV was. While there is debate about when the HIV virus first came into exist and started to be able to infect humans (most agree that what would become the HIV virus started to infect humans before 1950), the medical world of the first half of the twentieth century was ignorant of the virus. It wasn't until the 1980s that the medical profession really identified the HIV virus. **

**All right, now that I've hopefully kept your interest instead of just boring you…I'll say the obvious. The next chapter is when we meet two very important creatures. To those of you how have never actually played Bioshock, you are in for quite the treat. :) **

**Until then, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word!**


	12. A Family Night at the Footlight Theater

**Hi, guys! As you can likely guess, here's the next chapter of this story. Before beginning, I just have a few very quick comments for two of the people who like this story. ****Heroi Oscura, I'm sorry I wasn't able to get this chapter posted sooner but I hope that this chapter lives up to your expectations. NerdyBarista, here is where you will meet the creatures that Cody partially saw when he was fading in and out of consciousness in the sixth chapter. I'll be curious to see what you think of them. **

**Having said that, here is the twelfth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": ****A Family Night at the Footlight Theater**

* * *

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah simply watched the strange spectacle from the second floor of the Footlight Theater. The word "spectacle" was both perfect and out of place. Its perfection came from the fact that the little girl below was in an area meant for entertainment. But it was out of place because what was happening didn't seem entertaining. However, the teens couldn't be entirely sure what exactly was happening.

Even so, Cody was looking at this sight with more than the general confusion of the others. His mind was flashing back to when he was fading in and out of consciousness after taking his first plasmid, when that horrifying little girl was standing over his body. The memory of that very long needle and talk of "angels" flooded his mind like a river.

Atlas' voice drew him from his thoughts, _"Careful now...would you kindly lower your weapons for a minute?"_

The teens silently complied, though most were a little confused as to what the request was for. But Cody did, realizing that he had been gripping his pistol rather tightly at the sight of the girl. For reasons Cody couldn't say, something about her filled him with fear.

"What's going on Atlas, it's just a girl… right?" Cody weakly asks the shortwave radio.

_"You think that's a child down there?"_ Atlas responded incredulously. _"Don't be fooled, she's a __**Little Sister**__ now. Somebody went n' changed a sweet baby girl into a monster."_

As the teens walked to the other side of the theater's balcony via the theater's catwalk, Courtney took the radio from Cody, "What do you mean? How is she a monster?"

"_Stop for a moment and get a closer gander at that…__**thing**__ down there. I can't say it."_

Stopping mid-way on the catwalk, the four teens looked down, able to see better now. Under the bright light of a massive theater light, the Little Sister was for them all to see. They saw that the little girl, who was likely eight years old and wearing a lavender apron. What they paid more attention to the motions of this little girl; they were like stabbing. Why would this little girl be stabbing a corpse? What was she stabbing this corpse with?

As the little girl's arms went through several stabbing motions, to very specific areas it seemed, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah got a much better look at needle being used. The total needle was nearly half her height and the needle blade itself was half the total needle's length. Seeing glances of it, the teens saw that the needle itself was the size of an icepick and appeared to be wielded to a metal pipe. The needle's handle seemed to be crafted out of looked like a rusty gas pump handle or maybe the nozzle of a garden hose…or maybe both? It was unclear which. But what was clear was it was which made up the chamber that was at the top of the handle above the pump. It was a baby bottle, most likely glass, although it might have been plastic, which was mass-produced in the 1940s. But, even though it was just a baby bottle, complete with pink nipple, it was haunting. The main reason for this was because it was the same glowing and yet dark red that the **Electro bolt** plasmid had been. It looked like blood that developed luminosity.

After a few more motions, the little girl, the Little Sister, stopped stabbing the corpse. It stood up and after taking a quick look around; it brought the baby bottle's nipple to its mouth. The Little Sister started to drink whatever it had just drawn from the corpse!

Drinking the unknown material from the dead with the gusto of a man dying of thirst, the Little Sister unknowingly horrified four people who were new to this strange, vile world.

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah all gripped the rusted railings of the catwalk, struggling to remain standing after seeing a sight so difficult for them to contemplate!

They remained this way for a few moments, until the Little Sister started to stab at the dead man yet again with her needle; her trusts were just as purposeful and repeated.

This repeat of the sickening speculate compelled the teens to finally reach the other side of the theater's balcony. Finding herself standing despite her body shaking with fright, Courtney, with her hand just as wobbly, frantically asks Atlas in a voice cracking.

"W-why…how… why would someone do that? H-how could anyone make a little girl do that!? How could they do something so wrong!?"

Atlas almost chuckled before answering, _"Whatever you thought of 'right' and 'wrong' on the surface…well that don't count much down in Rapture. Those Lil' Sisters, they carry __**ADAM**__-the genetic material that keeps the wheels of Rapture turning. Everybody wants it, everybody needs it."_

As Atlas had been talking to them, the teens had found a slightly demolished stairway leading downward. They paused for a moment, thinking of two overpowering thoughts. The first that this stairway, while likely able to get them down safely, they doubted that it would be stable enough to get them to come back up them. This was a point of no return. Also, by doing so, they would find themselves on the same level as that, that…**thing!**

But, if they didn't going down these stairs, they'd be stuck in this part of Rapture. Hell, they'd be stuck in Rapture. And that notion was more frightening than the Little Sister.

So, with great reluctance, the four teenagers made their way down the stairway.

* * *

After traveling down the stairs, they were just outside the glass windows of the theaters' sitting area, on the lower level. Once on this level, the teens were able to see the Little Sister much closer…to their horror.

Looking upon this creature, they were forced to acknowledge that Atlas had to be right. There was no way that this, this, **thing** was still a little girl, that it was still a human. Its skin, which should have been a light peach, reflecting its newness to life, was soot grey. The predominately grey coloring of its body combined with faintly greenish hues gave this Little Sister more of resemblance to the corpse it was harvesting than a human. Its hair, which as brunette in color, was dirty and covered in dried liquids, most likely blood. Seeing the apron at this distance, they could see that it was tattered and smeared in stains. And then there was its eyes…oh god, those horrible and fiendish inhuman orbs of eyes!

Instead of green, blue, brown, its eyes were a thick and dusky mustard color. But the coloring wasn't the frightening part, or at least, not the most frightening part. That belonged to the fact that they glowed, actually casting off dimly yellow light around them! They had no pupils or irises; there was no humanizing black amid the glowing. But despite that, around these orbs of unnatural light the sockets of the eyes were charnel black, looking like deep canyons of scorched forestland now covered in eclipsing ash. Furthermore, those enclosing canyons of ash seemed to be deep from them being sunken, as if the ochre energy from the glowing eyes was melting the flesh and bone behind them.

The total package of the Little Sister's appearance combined with its actions of harvesting the corpse before it to ingest something from it was truly unbelievable. So much so that the four teenagers were scared, scared of what was once a little girl.

Despite her shock, Courtney was able to bring the radio to her mocha-skin becoming paler once again to ask Atlas a question. "Why is **ADAM** so important?"

_"__**ADAM**__ is what Rapture's scientists used to make plasmids, tonics, and the like."_ Atlas lectured before expressing shock and then continuing to lecture, _"Oh, you don't know what __**tonics**__ are yet, right? No matter, one foot before the next, one thing at a time, eh? Anyway, plasmids fade over time, unless you keep an active inflow of __**ADAM**__ comin'. Plasmids became the big thing in Rapture, there wasn't 'nough __**ADAM**__ for the demand. So, the eggheaded ghouls cooked up the Little Sisters, to gather a lot more of the stuff." _

After Atlas had finished his little explanation, Noah had a strong impulse to claim his offense at the Irishman's use of the word "egghead". However, what stopped him from doing so was him noticing that the Little Sister stood up yet again. Being closer, Noah and the other teens could see that her lavender apron extended to just below her grey knees; but two things prevented that detail from be deemed of much importance by them.

The first was the fact that the Little Sister was gulping down the still unknown stuff from the corpse again. It was even more repulsive seeing it up-close, to see it drinking this pulsing red effluvium while being able to see all of the subtle iridescent bubblings!

It was truly a sickening sight, more sickening than any of the considerable ones that came before it. To Noah, however, he had a sense that this scene, despite its horror, was fitting. It seemed to belong to Rapture in the same way that giant pink elephants belong to hallucinating drunks. Given what they've seen so far, would pink elephants be so absurd?

And the second was the theater doors, on the opposite side of the doors that couldn't open before, sliding open. Strutting into the theater was a lone male splicer, wielding a pistol much like the ones that all of the teenagers from TD minus Courtney were now carrying. He seemed to be chattering to himself but the teens couldn't make out what it was exactly he was saying because of the intervening pane of glass separating them from him and it.

He didn't seem to notice the Little Sister at first. But then to his evident shock, he did. With the Little Sister still not noticing him, the splicer looked around the room, as if looking for something that he was excepting to find. Whatever it was, he didn't find it.

Because of that, the splicer started to slowly approach the Little Sister from behind. However, mere seconds after he started to do so, the Little Sister turned around and saw him. Upon realizing that the Little Sister had now seen his advancement, he acted by make a shushing gesture with his hand, hoping the Little Sister would listen to him.

This hope seemed to be in vain as the Little Sister let loose an ear-piercing scream.

The splicer jumped backwards, obviously startled by the sudden scream. Just as quickly, he lunged at the Little Sister and struck the head with the butt of his revolver violently.

The Little Sister fell to the floor. Despite not being visibly injured by the blow, the teens looked on in fright. No matter what their thoughts of the Little Sister, they were worried. Even the inhuman appearance of the Little Sister couldn't soften what was to happen. The scene playing out before them seemed to be leading to them seeing a child murdered!

But, everyone, them and the splicer were stopped in their thoughts and actions by a sound. It was a loud and brutal roar, which echoed through both of the rooms, even if the glass barrier that seemed to obscure most other sounds aside from the previous scream! This roar sounded like a whale's deep call, if whales could speak in tones fitting Hell!

Following the source of the wrathful roar, the four teens' head snapped upward. All of them were now looking in the direction of the hole in the wall they had passed though. Doing so, they saw the frightening image of a mass of red lights, like Hell-fire, they were. But then, the lights jumped into the air and crashed onto the theater's floor like a comet!

Now displayed in the stage's spotlight, the red light's monstrous form was revealed!

Cody, even more so than the others, cringed in horror at seeing what appeared before them. His mind flashed back to when he was fading in and out yet again, but this time it was towards the creature that seemed to be accompanying the little girl, the Little Sister. The Tech Geek didn't want to believe this was the same metal monster he had seen. However, all of the evidence of its appearance made that conclusion unavoidable for him.

The creature was wide and yet either only slightly shorter or a tad taller than Courtney, the tallest of the four teenagers. Even so, its body conveyed a weight and size greater than what it actually was, as if its squat body was full of a deeper compressed strength and was so dense that it appeared as if a point-blank shotgun blast wouldn't knock it off its feet. This being had a mostly humanoid outline, meaning that it had at least a body, two legs, two arms, and a head. But that's where the similarities, even the barest, between whatever this thing was and humans ended.

Its entire body was clad in a very distinct and heavy deep-sea diving suit, the entire torso of which is covered by a high-gauge metal carapace that was a rusty bronze coloring but might not have been actually made of bronze. The majority of its four limbs were covered in what superficially resembled a very thick and unnaturally dark green leather-like material. Attached to each shoulder was a large and heavy cylindrical metal object. The one protruding near the left shoulder appeared to be a very large oxygen tank while the one for the right was much smaller and had a purpose that was not obvious for this thing.

Every feature of this being's body was clothed in an antique diving suit except for the head. What was the head of this creature was encased in large hemispherical helmet that protruded directly forward from the upper chest. Surrounding this helmet were four horizontally curving metal bars that formed a kind of "ribcage" for this very bulky head. This helmet appeared to be so heavy as it sat on its shoulders that it seemed to make it slightly bend over due to its weight. Studded on this helmet were eight lit portholes, with all of them blaring red. These portholes were circular, glowing sensors…its eyes, if you will. Even though they served the same biological function as eyes…they weren't eyes.

Even if all of these alien features, they weren't what drew the teenager's eyes the most. That honor belonged to this creature's right arm, or, what was where it should have been. Covering this metal monstrosity's right arm to just forward if the elbow was a large and fully functional conical power drill, seemingly built right into its right arm permanently. Even in his alarm, Noah assumed that the tank on its right shoulder was a power pack for this power drill even though no wires could be seen connecting it to the oversized drill.

* * *

Even though it was only a second or two, it felt like eons before anything reacted to it. Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah couldn't even breathe as they watched what came next.

The Splicer unloaded two pistol rounds at the monster, but if they did any damage the teens would never know. Seemingly unaffected, the metal creature threw a discarded chair at the splicer by hitting it with its power drill. The chair was flung at the doors the splicer had entered through, completely missing the male splicer.

As the splicer fired two more shots at the creature, the teens were confused as to why it would do this. However, looking closer to the floor revealed the answer. In the confusion of the chair being thrown, the Little Sister had snuck over and now hid behind one of its massive legs. Despite its grim face, the teens saw both fear and happiness on "her" face.

Likely from being out of bullets (however ineffective they seemed to be), the male splicer turned to flee but the door he had entered through was too far. But he still tried anyway.

In the time it took for the male splicer to take three steps, the monster had crossed the room and struck the splicer with its normal hand surrounded by a heavy metal gauntlet.

He was slammed into a wall after being slightly lifted into the air by the strike's force!

Despite the force of the punch, the splicer seemed to be recovering quickly, mostly standing. But as he was doing so, the golem's power drill was starting to revive up. While doing so, the metal monster struck the ground with it, causing a tremor that gave the splicer that had almost stood up unstable footing.

Then the drill arm was primed…

Any breathe that might have slipped out was stopped dead in its tracks as the teens watched. They all knew what was coming but couldn't believe that it would happen. Courtney covered her mouth with her hands as she stared out in horror. Gwen's mind flashed to the most brutally gory scenes in horror movies she had seen, trying to cushion herself for the inevitable. Both Cody and Noah had no detectable difference in demeanor.

After whatever measures the four teenagers had taken to prepare themselves; it happened.

The gigantic drill was driven into directly into the splicer's body as if it were nothing! He screamed in vivid pain as the device spun to life and tore into his chest. For the second time today, the teenagers saw someone being gutted alive right in front of them as their arterial spray smeared their bright crimson blood all over the pale textures of Rapture!

The splicer still screamed while the power drill was mercilessly pulled out of his body. Without skipping a beat, the hulking horror then grabbed the splicer's head with his hand. As its hand covered his entire head, it lifted the splicer into the air as he weakly kicked.

The creature then brought the splicer's head to just in front of the glass window. The eyes of the four teenagers widened, unable to grasp this development. Surely it wouldn't…

**SMASH!**

The teens jumped back as this cruel colossus slammed the splicer's head against the glass they had been watching through! Many cracks started to appear on the very thick glass.

"Make it stop! Make it stop! Make it stop! MAKE IT STOP!" Courtney cried as she covered her ears and closed her eyes as tightly as she could while the creature prepared to pulverize the splicer into the glass yet again. His cries conformed that he was still alive.

**SMASH!**

The squat giant slammed the splicer's skull against the same spot on the glass yet again! The cracks protruding from the center of contact grew with jagged and uneven advances. As the place where his head was forced began to compress under the pressure, the teens knew that it wouldn't be able to take much more abuse before shattering into pieces.

Noah threw up before collapsing, nearly fainting at the realization that the glass would break soon. Cody, reaching the same conclusion as Noah, was frozen by fear; the only movement present on his paralyzed person was from the stain growing on his crouch. Gwen went pale (well, just even whiter). All of her experiences with horror movies were once again proven to be truly pointless when confronted with the horrors of Rapture.

**SMASH!** **KRRETTTTESSH!**

With its third attempt, the bulking brute forced the male splicer's head through the glass!

As the shards of glass fell onto the floor directly before the four frightened teenagers, they were all trying to wrap their minds around how a being like this was even possible!?

When the corpse of the deceased splicer finally stopped twitching, the monster slowly turned its gaze to Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah. They were unable to react to that. They couldn't help but imagine seeing those bright red "eyes" charging towards them.

Its powerful stance and the way it stood in front the Little Sister protectively clearly portrayed its message: stay away!

Fearing for their lives at seeing the possibly aggressive stance of this unbelievable beast, the teens all raised their hands in surrender and slowly backed away from the creature.

When they were finally a safe distance away, the lights that covered the creature's helmet changed from red to a green-yellow and it did a calm hand gesture to the Little Sister. While doing so, the Little Sister's metal guardian began to slowly walk out of the room.

As its huge, metal-encased legs clunked along relentlessly, this grim golem was careful to never injure the barefoot, grubby little tyke of a girl scampering beside it. Despite being so small and fragile compared to it, it was the Little Sister who was the dominate one.

With the two creatures starting to leave the other room, the four teenagers released breaths they didn't know they had been holding as Atlas' Irish brogue called out to them.

_"That's the __**Big Daddy**__. She gathers __**ADAM,**__ he keeps her safe." _

When the Big Daddy and Little Sister where finally out of sight, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah all lowered their arms and sank to the floor, nearly crying in unrestrained relief.

If there was ever a time that the teens felt such pure fright out of believing that their lives would be ended violently, it was when they came face to face with his first Big Daddy.

Even if they somehow made it out of Rapture, the images of the Little Sister and Big Daddy would forever haunt their nightmares. They would never forget those foul faces.

* * *

**And there was have it, the teenagers have been introduced to the Big Daddy and Little Sister, two of the most important beings in Rapture from both a practical and philosophical view. The ways in which this is the case will be revealed as the story goes along. **

**Similar to a few other times, I'm especially curious to see the views of those who have never played Bioshock. The introduction of the Little Sister and Big Daddy was so perfectly awesome and I hopefully was able to recreate that good enough. **

**Anyway, so, I hope you all liked this chapter. While I can't make any guarantees, hopefully the next chapter will have what is left of the "Welcome to Rapture" level. **

**Whether that is the case or not, until the next chapter please ****read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word!**


	13. A Welcome Drawing Very Nigh

**Hello everyone! I just a few quick comments before moving on to this story's longest chapter so far. **

**I'm glad that everyone was favoring of my portrayal of the introduction of the Little Sister and Big Daddy. I was worried that I failed to do that awesome scene justice. **

**Shortly after posting that chapter, I found the following comment on a video on Youtube which has the same scene I described in it. Posted seven moths ago, the comment was: "Big Daddy -** **A pedophiles worst nightmare". While that got a chuckle out of me, what interested me more was who it was who posted it…TDI Charlie Brown! For those of you who don't know, TDI Charlie Brown is a Total Drama fan-fiction author who has written a story that is one of my favorites: "A Codette World Tour". If you've never read it, I can't recommend it enough! **

**Also, this story, along with another by the same author, was added to TV tropes by one ****CMR Rosa…further proving that the guy as great taste in Total Drama stories! **

**Anyway, here is the thirteenth chapter of "Total Drama Rapurted": A Welcome Drawing Very Nigh**

* * *

In keep with a very odd precedent, the city of Rapture itself seemed willing to dose the teenagers in irony laced contrast which chilled them even deeper than they already were.

Literally seconds after the Big Daddy had just acted with a brutality so extreme that it would make Eva on a bad morning with both a period and a hangover look as peaceful as Bridgette, the speakers suddenly came to life and started playing the 1931 Noël Coward song _"The Party's Over Now"_. The pleasant yet droll tone developed a haunting quality.

"_The party's over now, the dawn is drawing very nigh,_

_The candles gutter, the starlight leaves the sky;_

_It's time for little boys and girls to hurry home to bed,_

_For there's a new day waiting just ahead."_

Despite the song proclaiming that it was time for little boys and girls to hurry along, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah stayed exactly where they were for a long time.

If they were going to leave, they were going to make damn sure that the Big Daddy was long gone. None of them wanted to risk provoking that metal monster or its ghastly girl!

"_Its ok kiddies. He's gone now, and he wouldn't hurt a hair on any of your heads…as long as you leave him and his Little Sister alone. But I don't blame you for being scared. I remember I shat bricks for three days after seeing my first Big Daddy."_ Atlas says.

Bringing the radio to her mouth, Courtney asked Atlas, "Ha-how did they make them? How on God's earth did they create monsters like that Big Daddy and Little Sister!?"

The other three teens looked at each other, realizing that they were all thinking the same.

"_I understand that you're curious but you're still not safe enough for a lecture on Rapture. After you get to Neptune, or a area without splicers, I'll answer that question."_ Atlas says before the shortwave radio shuts off.

When it did, the teens returned to waiting, even though they noticed a key difference. The powerful vibrations caused by the Big Daddy's merely walking were nearly nonexistent.

When the thundering footsteps had long since faded into the distance from the Footlight Theater, the teenagers prepared themselves to move forward despite what just happened.

The only available exit was through a locked shutter that led into a short hallway just outside of the theater. They found that the padlock and chain that closed the door was worn and rusted. With one quick strike from Gwen's wrench, it was easily disposed of.

After the shutter swung open, the teenagers happily (relatively that is) fled the theater.

* * *

The hallway opened into a dark corridor, barely lit by the few remaining lights hanging from the high ceiling. Within this corridor was another **VITA-CHAMBER**. Like the first one the four teenagers encountered, this one also appeared to be broken and not glowing.

Slightly to the left of the broken **VITA-CHAMBER** was a bloody pile of debris with a corpse. Searching the corpse, Noah found nothing except for a Crème-filled Cake, like a Twinkie. In fact, it was Twinkie! Or at least, a nearly identical kind of gold sponge cake. While not thinking much of this, the Bookworm noticed that someone else did.

Staring at him like a dog trying to beg for table scraps, Cody looked at Noah with wide eyes. Even after all of the horrible things he had seen, his sweet tooth was acting up.

"You realize that this sponge cake was found on a dead guy, right?" Noah asks Cody.

The Tech Geek nodded his head.

"You do know that contrary to urban legend, Twinkies do have a expiration date and can reach it after seven to ten days, right?"

The Tech Geek nodded his head.

"And none of that makes any difference to you since you still want this Twinkie, right?"

The Tech Geek nodded his head for a third time; his eyes never left the sponge cake.

Sighing with a roll of the eyes, Noah handed over the Crème-filled Cake to Cody.

Cody displayed a massive smile and wet eyes, feeling far happier than he knew he should, because somehow this treat like the ones back home reminded him that there were things outside of this horrible place. But more than that, it remained him of a time not so long ago, when things were simple and not so unbelievably psychotic. Noah got the impression that Cody believed that tasting that comforting childhood treat, that spongy yellow log of crème, that the world would somehow become innocent again and return to normal where it wasn't that everything was a monstrosity trying to kill him.

The Tech Geek couldn't help but bring the spongy yellow cake to his nose and move it side to side, savoring its sweet scent in a place that smelled like death everywhere else.

After doing so, he wasn't fully aware of what he did next out of simple but strong elation.

Cody hugged Noah tightly for being the deliverer of the Twinkie!

The Bookworm was startled and then horrified when he saw the smirks of the two girls.

With Cody still hugging him, Noah bitterly told them, "One gay joke out of either of you and you are both fried!"

The girls nodded their heads, though their smirks grew as he continued to be hugged.

When the Tech Geek finally released Noah, he commented, "And if you ever hug me again Cody, I'll shoot you to death, and then bring you back to life with the **Electro bolt**, and then beat you to death with my pipe, and then I'll teabag your mangled corpse!"

"Uh…I don't know if **Electro bolt** can do that?" Cody asks.

"Neither do I. But I'm willing give it a try." Noah says with a cold smirk.

Wisely choosing to not test the pissed off Bookworm, Cody and the girls followed Noah as he proceed to a connected hallway.

However, right when Noah started to do so, a female splicer darted down the hallway. Thankfully though, being quick on the genetic draw, Cody zapped her with **Electro bolt**!

As she convulsed in pain, Courtney quickly ran up to her and killed her with her pipe!

After searching her corpse, Courtney grew a little annoyed. She was the only one of them without a gun. And the C.I.T. always hated the idea of others being better than she was.

Keeping this to herself, Courtney led the others around the corner to a new hallway.

The floors were littered with discarded newspapers and the ever-present piles of rubble. The articles of news where smudged and destroyed, thus giving no insight to Rapture's dark secrets.

The teens stopped near the end of this new hallway as they heard some coughing. Peeking their heads out, the teenagers saw a male splicer scrounging though some trash.

Seeming to notice the teens, the male splicer flipped out of the trash and charged at them.

Acting quicker than the others, Cody again fired off some of his **Electro bolt** at him. While the Geek might have been lacking with guns, he was very skilled with Plasmids.

Knowing that it was now safe to do so, Cody used the one of his three **EVE** hypos.

Deciding that this was as good a time as any, Gwen took aim at the immobilized madman. Firing one of her four bullets at him, the male splicer went down dead!

Everyone stared at Gwen, amazed that her first shot was a kill. The Goth merely shrugged, she knew that it was much more to luck than skill that she had killed him.

Looking to their left, they noticed a large glassed-in balcony overlooking a large room. They realized that this was a transit hub, a place that connected a few parts of Rapture. Which was probably a place where people would go to reach the Footlight Theater and the Kashmir restaurant or maybe just get their shoes shined in between bathysphere stops. And if those were its purposes; they couldn't be them anymore, not with so much ruined. The majority of the place was covered in piles of debris, in particular the middle of the room. It seems like there was once a grand four-faced clock suspended above the room. But if there was, it was now a massive pile of debris, which was being dosed by an endless supply of seawater coming from the leaking skylight with no sky to highlight.

Of far greater importance were the two stations that were connected to this transit hub. The one on the right had bright pink neon letters saying: **MEDICAL PAVILION**. While the station on the left had in bright white letters: **NEPTUNE'S BOUNTY**.

Excited at finally reaching the entranceway to Neptune's Bounty (and hopefully out of this city), Courtney retrieved the shortwave radio she still had on her to inform Atlas.

"Atlas, we're almost there! We see the entrance, or something, for Neptune's Bounty!"

The Type-A Girl could almost hear Atlas laughing with joy on the other side of the radio. _"Good job kiddies! That'll take you all to Neptune right quick! Hurry up now, please."_

"You don't have to tell us twice! We'll be there in a flash, Atlas." Courtney says before putting the shortwave radio away, focused on getting there as fast as humanely possible.

Agreeing with her in their desire to leave Rapture, the other teens followed Courtney.

* * *

Not too far from the balcony, they found a red neon sign saying: **RAPTURE METRO**.

Passing under it, the teens found a large pile of debris to their left and a staircase to their right. Logic should have told them to instantly head down the staircase to their right.

However there was a feature that made the four teens less eager to use it…two splicers!

Luckily, they didn't notice the teens; they were both too concerned with searching some large object that was also on the staircase landing. But that wasn't the only noteworthy detail. Thanks to a broken pipe directly above it, a constant downpour was on these steps. Aside from the first steps, they were completely covered in dirtied water not from the sea.

Noah looked at the sight at first in sheer disbelief but then with a growing poised smirk. Turning to the others, they returned his smirk, as they seemed to reach the same thought.

Firing his **Electro bolt** at the water, Noah watched the immediate results of the lightning dancing across the surface of the water, as well as the stretched, torn skin of the splicers.

Once the two splicers stopped moving and the water stopped surging with blue sparks, the four teenagers went down to investigate the scene. The first thing they noticed was what exactly the splicers were looking at with such focus…the body of a Big Daddy!

The four of them were truly shocked to see this sight. From what they saw in the Footlight Theater, these Big Daddies were invincible! At least, that's how they seemed.

However, as the water poured down upon it as a miniature waterfall and its eight portholes were not glowing either blaring red or green-yellow, that idea was wrong. As odd and indirect as it was, this idea gave the teenagers some comfort, knowing that even creatures as frightening and seemingly invincible as these Big Daddies could be killed.

Once their shock wore off, the teenagers searched both the Big Daddy and the splicers. It was a fairly fruitful bounty they found, 54 Rapture dollars and ten pistol rounds.

Everyone was given thirteen Rapture dollars with the remaining two put in Courtney's handbag. The pistol rounds were divided up between Cody, Noah, and Gwen evenly, with the Goth getting the odd bullet.

Again, keeping it to herself, though her face was starting to show a angered scowl, Courtney fumed internally, _'Who cares pistol bullets without a pistol!?'_

Still standing on the stairway landing, they noticed that the remaining stairway was demolished, leaving a slight space between them and the floor beneath their feet.

From their elevated position, the teens took a quick survey of the large room below them. Aside from the piles of rubble and the two entrances at different sides of the room, there were three details worthy of note. One, there was another broken **VITA-CHAMBER**. Two, one either side of the broken **VITA-CHAMBER** was the entrances to restrooms, one being a men's room and the other a ladies' room, even if they seemed connected. Three, directly above this machine was another red banner, with this one saying in gold: **ALTRUISM IS THE ROOT OF ALL WICKEDNESS. **

"What's altruism?" Cody asked, never hearing that word before.

"Doing something nice for others, being selfless basically." Noah answered.

"And that somehow is the root of wickedness?" Cody asked again, even more confused.

"I agree Cody. I would think that something like greed or violence or racism would be the root of wickedness. Those seem worse than helping a little old lady cross the street." Gwen commented.

"Ah, very true, my perceptive Goth." Noah said in agreement. "But not to someone like Andrew Ryan. Altruism was inherently evil because it claims that the act of furthering one's own life is the ultimate evil, thus engendering an irredeemable guilt within man. No, instead, his philosophy claims that it's only good to help out that little old lady if you'll earn some money or old hard candy for your trouble. Otherwise, you're doing it out of guilt alone and thus going against the natural reality of one's self-advancement."

Gwen blinked a few times. "That's insane."

"You'll find that many creations of people are. Just look at Total Drama, for example." Noah rebutted with a small smirk.

Despite previously having nothing but contempt for the bitter bookworm, Gwen couldn't help but develop a slight smirk of her own. "Touché."

As the two more pessimistic persons engaged in a light verbal sparring match, Courtney simply stared out over the space before them, lost in thought. She'd never admit it, of course, but the C.I.T. was torn. Despite seeing the results of such a line of thinking, she couldn't help but agree with it, at least partially. Why should someone, should her, feel guilty about using their talents to advance themselves, even with other's scornful eyes? Shouldn't she do her best while not bearing the weight of the world on her shoulders? If she hadn't thought that way, she never would have won her lawsuit and entered TDA. She would be just another one of the peanut gallery in TDA, just another loser from TDI. But she didn't win. She knew she was smart enough and willful enough to obtain victory. So why didn't she? Duncan! He voted for her, denying her what her talents justified her!

Ever since she had been voted off of TDA, that thought had been burning in the back of her mind…that she had failed to reach the her potential, that she failed to be the best.

Then the C.I.T.'s thoughts drifted to Rapture, mainly in that she was the only one without a gun. True, before this point she never would have wanted one. But that was then, this was now. Her not having a gun meant she was least useful of them; she wasn't the best!

She couldn't tolerate that! Even if they wouldn't be in here much longer, that had to stop!

"If you two are done, could we please just move on already!?" Courtney angrily snapped.

Gwen, Noah, and even Cody, looked at the mocha-skinned girl in shock at her outburst.

Noah looked down and saw that much like before when moving towards the Little Sister, the fall was not far, but there would be no easy way back up once they jumped down. Also, just like the stairway they were on, a broken pipe was pouring water onto the ground beneath them, creating a very large puddle at the foot of the ledge.

"Please after you, ladies' first after all." Noah says while gesturing for Courtney to go.

With a huff, Courtney took the fall before landing in the puddle at the Rapture Metro.

The Bookworm turned to Gwen and asked her, "How are you even friend-ish with her?"

"I'm not sure if we could even be considered friend-ish, I'm shocked were not enemies." Gwen admitted before continuing with, "Even more shocking, despite her grating sense of self-entitlement and bossy demeanor, there is a good person under there somewhere."

With that, the Goth was the next one to take the plunge.

"I'll believe when I see it, but I think it might be buried pretty deep, maybe buried alive." Noah says, mostly to himself while his mind was flashing back to earlier with the splicer. If Courtney were as bad as he previously thought her to be, why would she save him?

Trying to ignore this chip of doubt in his cynical outlook of life, Noah jumped downward.

Continuing to remain silent as he had, Cody was the last one of them to jump downward.

* * *

Having leapt from the broken stairway and into the shallow puddle of the lower room, the teens all shook the water out of her pants legs to whatever extent that actually could have.

After doing so, they all bolted directly towards the tunnel on the right marked Neptune's Bounty. They were so focused on this that they didn't bother checking the few storage crates scattered through the run down metro hub. They would come to regret this choice.

As they were about to enter the corridor, a heavy metal fence sprung out from the wall and barred the entrance!

Suddenly, all hell broke loose as the lights turned red and a siren wailed throughout the room!

"_Security alert is in progress." _A contrastingly cheery voice sounded over the intercom.

_"What the hell's goin' on over there?!"_ Atlas screamed from Courtney's pocket.

The teens would have tried to move the gate but an odd object popped out of a grate on the floor behind the gate. Given what they had seen in Rapture, the four teenagers assumed that this object was dangerous.

Slowly backing off, Courtney got out the shortwave radio and tried to yell so Atlas could hear her over the blaring sirens. Since this was Courtney, she was easily able to do this.

"We don't know! But we can't get to Neptune's Bounty since the gate has been shut! What should we do?"

_"Just hold tight lassy, I'll see what I can do from here. I can open some of the doors in Rapture but not all of them."_ Atlas tried to reassure them, but the teens were losing their cool very quickly.

Adding to this losing of cool was that the teenagers were now able to get a good look at the odd object that had been raised from below the floor. It looked like a swivel chair with a green gas tank connected to a long, black flamethrower nozzle. It was a flamethrower turret! As if trying to prove that point, it shot a brief blast of fire at them.

Being safely out of its limited range, the teenagers had much more immediate concerns.

In the distance, the four teens could hear screaming… lots of it. It echoed through the halls and dug into their brains, dozens of them were out there and they were attracted to the wailing of the security alert.

Backing up against the wall near the now locked gate with the flamethrower turret, all of the teens save for Courtney both pulled out their pistols and primed their **Electro bolt. **With her other hand also glowing in lines of bright blue, Courtney got out the radio again.

"Atlas, we've got a problem." Courtney says to the radio, barely keeping her voice level despite her growing fear as red lights of the security alert were casting ominous shadows of the approaching splicers along the balcony walls.

"_I'm workin' as fast as I can. Your gonna have to hold them off for a spell, lassy."_ Atlas says with his Irish voice half focused on some other aim, likely getting them out alive.

Right as Atlas' voice left the radio, three splicers leapt down the broken stairway the teens had used…which meant that they were in the same puddle of water they had been. Acting on instinct, Cody fired some **Electro bolt** at the water, frying all three of them!

The Tech Geek would have smiled at this achievement, if not for the bullets that barely missed him! The teens were horrified to discover that some splicers were still on the upper balcony…and now were shooting at them! Gwen and Noah turned their attentions to them, having been the better shots of the three teens that were armed with pistols. Hoping to combine bullets with bolts, the two more cynical teens attempted to kill them.

At the same time, three splicers armed with metal pipes jumped down to the lower level. Cody fired more **Electro bolt** but was only able to fry one of the three splicers this time.

The other two charged at Cody and Courtney, each seeming to choose one of them. The one that seemed to pick Cody had leapt into the air and was armed with a butcher knife. He landed a few feet from Cody. In response, the Tech Geek rolled to the left as the splicer swung the blade at him, but it screamed in anger as the blade cut nothing but the air. Now a safe distance away, Cody leapt back onto his feet he took aim at the splicer. There was a deafening **crack** as he pulled the trigger and the splicer found a new hole above its right ear! Cody had no time to celebrate as two more splicers entered the room. After using another bolt of lightning, Cody once again found himself being attacked. But now, he was out of **EVE** and couldn't afford the few seconds needed to inject himself!

At the same time, Courtney was having her own troubles with a single splicer. Only armed with a pipe, the C.I.T. struggled to deflect the blows of her raved assailant. And this only became worse when two more splicers jumped down and were charging her.

Acting quickly, Courtney ran as fast as she could from one end of the closed gate to the other. As she hoped, the three splicers chasing her followed her, and were set on fire!

Flailing their arms to put out the flames, all three of them jumped into a puddle of water. Remembering what Cody and Noah did before; the C.I.T. used **Electro bolt** on the water, killing all of the splicers!

Once they were all dead, Courtney, despite the manic atmosphere around her, searched them all for a pistol. None of them had any. She screamed bloody murder at this injustice…until a lone bullet forced itself into her left shoulder blade! She yelled in pain.

Even among the blaring sirens, Courtney's shout was alarmingly loud and noticeable. Turning her head, Gwen saw in horror at both Cody and Courtney were looking overwhelmed, with the later having been shot and former being ganged up on quickly.

Aiming her pistol, the Goth fired a bullet at a new splicer that was running towards Courtney. The pistol round found its mark and the attacking splicer fell down dead!

She then turned her pistol in Cody's direction but when he tried to fire nothing happened. She was out of bullets. Her kill to save Courtney was the only kill she had gotten in this fight, proving her right that her kill before this big fight started was mainly a lucky fluke.

Charging at Cody, mostly by catching the splicers attacking him by surprise, Gwen was able to kill them with a few quick strikes with her wrench combined with **Electro bolt**.

Almost growling in frustration, Gwen shouted at Cody to help Noah while she helped Courtney. With that, the big black boots of the Goth echoed loudly on the hard floor tiles. With a running start and sheer hatred for these madmen, Gwen brought her heavy wrench on all them, eventually beaten them all to death while displaying no sympathy for them.

If it were anyone else doing this action, Cody would have been horrified beyond belief. But since this was Gwen, he watched with a fasciation and delight that was nearly unsettling. Even amid this frantic fight for their lives, time seemed to slow down for him. As such, he could take note of many miniature marvels expressed by Gwen being mad. When Gwen was serious, her face would get cutely scrunched up, her piercing eyes would narrow; she would make the most adorable of cute hissing sound.

As Cody stared dumbfounded by Gwen's beauty even in danger and burning wrath, Noah stopped firing his pistol (which was starting to run low on bullets) to stare dumbfounded at him.

'_Seriously Cody! Even when we are fighting for our lives you still somehow find time to ogle her!?' _Noah said to himself right before firing at the few remaining splicers above them with his **Electro bolt**, wanting to save his few remaining bullets for when needed.

Possibly still going on the adrenaline rush, Gwen surprised even herself with how well she was doing with her wrench and **Electro bolt.** However, as a new wave of splicers charged her, the Goth discovered something horrible…she was out of **EVE **hypos!

And Courtney was still fighting off one of the splicers that had attacked her before. Gwen was on her own, armed with only a wrench and starting to tire against a foe with a pipe. She was able to deflect or dodge a few of the metal pipe's blows, and give him a few of her own with her wrench. However, a strike meant for her head crashed into her shoulder! Cringing and shouting in pain, Gwen couldn't react quickly enough before another strike collided with her right temple, producing a sickening crushing sound!

Hearing the crushing sound, Courtney turned around in horror as she saw Gwen fall onto the filthy floor. Noah stopped using his last **Electro bolt** and bullets to stare as well. But neither of those reactions could hold a candle to the one that Cody had to this awful sight.

At first, externally, Cody had no reaction. He simply stared at the sight in total terror. But, internally, two powerful and previously felt impulses were pulsating within him. The first was that same rolling hotness carrying him over its euphoric crest that he felt after getting his first Plasmid, when he vowed to himself that he would always protect Gwen. The second was the feeling of Cody's body being put on auto-pilot that he felt when he was finally able to shoot the splicer Charlie. These emotions now began to fuse together.

After what felt like years to him but was really a few seconds, Cody's face contorted into one of absolute rage! Clenching his right hand into a fist so tight that he nearly cut his hand on his own fingernails, Cody was once again unknowingly putting an entire **EVE **hypo's worth of **EVE** into a single shot of **Electro bolt**! At the same time as Cody was doing so, a half a dozen new splicers began to descend and charge at Courtney and Gwen.

With the blue electricity being so intense that it was shooting off in fat sparks a foot long, Cody steadied himself, waiting for them to come within range of the fury about to be unleashed. About five seconds later, that's exactly what happened. They got within range.

Without a second thought, Cody released what appeared to almost be a massive net of shifting, sapphire ropes that crackled and burned the ozone as they charged the splicers!

In less than two seconds, these sparking sapphire ropes found their targets, all six of them! The entire charging wave of new splicers had been immobilized as their bodies convulsed helplessly under the waves of antagonistic azure energy. Then a few seconds later, there was a final charge that blasted all of the splicers hardly at the cracked walls!

Just like before when Cody unintentionally killed his first splicer with the **Electro bolt**, this blast was far stronger than the others that the other teens or even him did before. Unlike those blasts that merely immobilized splicers and made them more vulnerable to damage, this blast and that first one actually **killed the splicers** **all by themselves** and generated enough force to actually send the fried splicers falling across the rooms.

As the six freshly smoking bodies were now littered across what was the Rapture Metro, some more splicers came down and charged at Cody, now viewing him as the biggest threat. There thoughts were justified as Cody then drew his pistol and started firing. Despite the Tech Geek having struggled with this weapon before, he wasn't any more. As long as Cody allowed his arms and hands to seemingly **move on their own**, he didn't miss! He fired somewhere between five and seven bullets (he couldn't keep count in the chaos) and every shot found its target, every shot turned a splicer into a repulsive corpse. Again, it seemed unreal, like Cody was playing a video game instead of actually killing people. Despite some initial resistance, the Tech Geek found that view more appealing.

What brought Cody out of that trance like state of being on autopilot was the fact that finally all of the splicers that had been attacking them were dead. Noah had just killed the last ones on the balcony shooting at them. Even with one her arms much weaker thanks to the bullet wound, Courtney had still be able to defeat Gwen and kill a few splicers.

The security alert was still loudly proclaiming itself and the red ominous lights shined. But for the first time in several minutes that felt like a lifetime on the battlefield, nothing was trying to kill them.

Taking advantage of this, Courtney pulled out the shortwave radio. "Atlas, please tell me that you're almost done whatever it is that you are doing!?"

As more shadows like those of demons started to appear against the hell-fire red lights, Atlas' voice was heard responding with, _"This ain't good lassy."_

Courtney's stomach dropped at those words. "Don't say that! You can do something, right… RIGHT!?"

"Oh shit…" Atlas' suppressed voice said barely audible over the siren and the screams.

As screams were becoming louder and the shadows were becoming larger, Courtney responded with, "STILL NOT HELPING!"

_"It's Ryan!"_ Atlas screamed into the radio, _"__**GODDAMN ANDREW RYAN!**__ He found us! Dammit! He's closed off access to Neptune from where you are!"_

"What the hell, I thought he was dead or something?" Courtney asked in total shock. Given the fresh hell that they had been in and the fact that Atlas never mentioned him before this point, the C.I.T. (and Cody and Gwen) had forgotten all about Andrew Ryan.

_"No, the old vulture could have been watching us the whole time. There's another way to get there, to Neptune…head to __**Medical!**__ It should be on the opposite side of the room."_

Turning their heads, Courtney, Cody, and Noah saw the bright pink neon sign for Medical Pavilion. Just as they were looking at it, the gate that had been blocking it was parted, as if by Moses. As they did, Gwen started struggling to get back on her feet. With Cody and Noah helping the Goth stand up, Courtney told Atlas, "You're right, I see it!"

_"What are you waiting for? Go!"_ Atlas screamed to Courtney and the other teenagers as another batch of splicers ran along the balcony above them.

With Cody and Noah helping Gwen as they ran, the four teens sprinted as quickly as they could into the tunnel leading towards the Medical Pavilion and away from this place.

They could hear the splicers, screaming like caged monkeys, as they followed them into the corridor. They'd reached a point of no return. They'd either get to Medical…or die!

With some difficulty thanks to Gwen's weakened state, the teens leapt over another pile of rubble and ran through another fountain of falling water coming from the ceiling. The red lights gave the water an otherworldly pinkish coloring, looking like diluted blood.

Shunning that comparison, they reached a point where the large hallway cut to the left. After turning past a pink neon sign with two black snakes intertwined around a staff with 'Medical Pavilion' next to it, they found themselves in a small room whose only noteworthy features were a working yellow-coned light and an enormous metal bulkhead.

Just as the teens entered the small room and were about to pass through the doorway, it slid shut! Reeling from the shock of them being effectively locked out of the bulkhead, the teens could react quick enough as the only exit from the room was cut off by metal fences just like the one that had denied them access to Neptune's Bounty! Creating a terrifying trinity of trails, the working light was eliminated, plunging them into darkness!

* * *

"_Ah, Christ! You're trapped!" _Atlas' voice exclaimed in shock.

"Wha-what was your first clue?" Gwen weakly asked no one in particular while still being held up by the two small and light framed boys.

Still holding the radio, Courtney brought it to her lips. "Atlas… ple-please, please tell me you have a plan."

"_Gonna try to override the exit from here!" _

With nothing else being said by Atlas, Courtney could hear the sounds of him shuffling about on the other side of the radio in a big hurry. She forced herself to not panic now.

This became more difficult as the splicers' screams of rage and frustration were growing in volume and number with each passing moment from the other side of the closed gate.

Just as Courtney was beginning to give up hope, she heard the sounds of some unseen device coming to life. She turned to where she thought the bulkhead was but instead was nearly blinded by a bright white light. With her eyes adjusted to the new brightness, the Type-A Girl saw what the other three teenagers saw as well.

On the wall on the opposite side of the bulkhead, there was a large screen behind a glass wall. Slowly coming into focus on this large screen under glass was the black silhouette of the lighthouse that had brought them to this abyssal domain under the roaring waves. Even with the slide it was projected on being jumpy and constantly move around the screen, the teens could still make out the words across the frame: **PLEASE STAND BY**.

When the picture was finally in focus, the image changed to one of a man's head, in real time. As the light blue light of the image filled about half of the teens' vision with light, they noticed that they really couldn't make out much of the man's face. A fedora hat obscured his eyes. While the exact color was unknowable, he was also wearing a darker colored suit, possibly a brown. The overall effect was that this man conveyed the menace of a ruthless Mafioso, as if the gangster characters from the films of 1940s Hollywood came to life and were stripped of any snappy bravado or the censorship of the PCA. **(1)**

The identity of this man, who they could tell was glaring at them menacingly even though they couldn't see his eyes thanks to the fedora hat's wide rim, was not a huge mystery. The word **RYAN** displayed at the bottom left hand corner left no doubt as to his identity.

A voice spoke to the teens over the sounds of sirens and screaming. _"So tell me, friends…which one of the __**bitches**__ sent you? The KGB wolf? Or the CIA jackal? Have things become so desperate on the surface that they send children to __extinguish the flame of my city, the phoenix that will rise from its ashes to guide them towards salvation?" _

In the briefest of pauses possible, the teens couldn't believe what they were hearing for a few reasons. Firstly, he thought that they were agents of the KGB or the CIA? That the KGB was still around! Secondly, despite not being able to see his face, the teens could tell that he seemed to have barely aged. He shouldn't be alive and if he were, he'd be over a hundred years old! But he sounded like a man who was in his late fifties at most. And lastly, he thought that this city, this hell on Earth, would ever rise from its ashes!

"_Here's the news: Rapture isn't some sunken ship for you to plunder, and Andrew Ryan isn't a giddy socialite who can be slapped around by government muscle."_

Of the four teens, Noah was the most shocked of any of them. The voice that had impressed many, including him when he was being brought to Rapture, was different. It was still clearly Andrew Ryan's voice but it seemed to be more worn down and embittered. And that mood, worn down and embittered, reeked all over this man. Was this the same Andrew Ryan that he had read about, the man who commanded respect and praise from nearly all, as he became one of the wealthiest and most powerful men of all-time? Something had changed in Andrew Ryan, or at least, some things that were obscured on the surface became stronger down here in Rapture. Either Andrew Ryan had gone insane along with the rest of his city, or he was much too paranoid for his own good. Noah was wondering if the two, paranoia and insanity, were one in the same.

As the screaming reached painful volumes, Noah barely heard Ryan's last words. _"And with that, farewell, or dasvidaniya. Whichever you prefer." _**(2)**

As the screen returned to its message from before with the lighthouse and the **Please Stand By**, the teens were horrified to see that the splicers had finally caught up to them!

Three splicers wielding pipes appeared behind the glass and tried to destroy the only thing protecting the teens from them. They slowly backed away from the terrifying trio as the glass began to crack under their manic and malevolent ministration. The image behind them, that of the lighthouse, flicked on and off the screen as they attacked. Some moments, they would be visible and others they would not. The teens feared that they would break through while they were bathed in blackness before the lighthouse returned.

Courtney snatched the radio back to her mouth. "At-Atlas… Atlas? Please tell me you're almost done?"

She received no response.

"ATLAS!" She screamed into the radio, panicking as a splicer created a small hole in its' part of the glass! Then another created a much larger cracked hole! And then the third…

Suddenly, Atlas' voice called back to her and the others as he said, _"I got it!" _

The large metal door behind the four teenagers slid open.

_"Get out of there...Get out NOW!"_

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah didn't need to be told a third time as they turned tail from the room. Once they were all inside of the bulkhead, Cody pulled the lever down.

As the bulkhead slid closed, they could hear the sound of frustrated screams and shattering glass! The last thing heard before moving were angry fists pounding close!

* * *

**Ok, and there you have it! After 13 chapters, the introduction of Bioshock is over! **

**For those of you who haven't played the game, this is the end of the first level of "Bioshock" which is fittingly called "Welcome to Rapture". So, now Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah have been introduced to many of the key elements of Bioshock: Rapture, Objectivist views, splicers, Atlas, Plasmids, ADAM, EVE, guns, audio diaries, ghosts, Little Sisters, Big Daddies, and Andrew Ryan. Of course there are still some things that will be discovered later but this covers much of the bases. **

**Anyway, of the chapters so far for this story, this one has been the hardest to write. And the biggest reason for that is me trying to figure out how much of the teens' supplies they should use for the first massive fight of Bioshock. I might not need to but I feel like having a revealed amount of resources and keeping track of their use ultimately adds to the tension because you know that they don't have infinite ammo or EVE and therefore there is always the possibility of them running out of either. **

**Also, I'm extremely worried that I was not able to portray the big fight in a good way. I almost feel like its too random and that I didn't do a good job explaining it. Any feedback on this, whether positive or negative, would help put my mind at ease. **

**Aside from a few footnotes for this chapter, I have one last thing to say here. Now that the 1st level of Bioshock is done, I'll likely take a little time before continuing it. My reasons are that since starting my summer job (aside from some help with "What is Real") I've focused entirely on this story and not on any of my other three and that I need to better plan out the progress of each of the four Total Drama teenagers in terms of character development, both individually and with the others. Don't worry, I'm still working on this crossover story and plan to finish it someday. It's just that I'll be focusing on one of my other stories as I plan it out in more detail. **

**(1) The PCA is the Production Code Administration, a department of ****Motion Picture Association of America created in the early 1930s to fend off accusations that movies and Hollywood were immoral and a leading cause of moral corruption. It was basically a list, with some parts very specific and others more vague, of things that a movie couldn't have if it wanted PCA approval, which was needed for a film to be allowed to be shown in theaters without fear of being shunned and a hefty fine. Some of the things forbidden by the PCA were "the inclusion of "scenes of passion" unless they were essential to a film's plot, "pointed profanity" in either word or action, "sex perversion", justification or explicit coverage of adultery, sympathetic treatment of crime or criminals, dancing with "indecent" moves, and white slavery". This organization within Hollywood held sway until it was ended in 1968. For this footnote, the idea is that evil was always censored to not be "too evil". But, Andrew Ryan, and Rapture as a whole, doesn't have any such censorship on him. **

**(2) Dasvidaniya is the Russian word for "Good Bye", even though it actually translates to "until we see each other again".**

**Next time, we begin seeing the teens travel through Medical Pavilion. For those of you who have played Bioshock, you know the horrors they are destined to endure! And for those who don't, trust me, they are truly horrifying and difficult to endure. **

**But until that point, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word!**


	14. The Trails of Transition

**Author's Notes: Hello everyone! So, after over a month of waiting…here is the next chapter! **

**I'll likely have a long endnote for this chapter but there are a few things that I must say here before that. **

**Firstly, I'm sad to say that this chapter will not be the introduction of Medical Pavilion. Instead, it will be the teens learning in much more detail about a few of the horrors within Rapture. In part, this chapter is based off of an observation made by the Gunmaster when he commented about the scene in which the Little Sister is revealed when he said, "Well, the part with the little sisters... they never really had any effect on me in-game, they didn't carry much impact for me. You hammered home 2K and Irrational's points home with that scene, sometimes you just have to visualize it in you're head for the full effect to be known, you know?" Yes, I do know and that's basically the point of this chapter, hammering home the game's points. **

**Secondly, I know that this is WAY after the fact but I may have misinformed some people before. When I said my story got on TVtropes, I likely made it sound like that I got a page. In actuality, I got a recommendation. Still very good, don't get me wrong! But that means that those of you looking for a detailed break down of this story by TVtropes were sadly disappointed. Sorry for anyone that happened too. :( Maybe if this story gets popular enough it will get its own page? We'll have to see. :) **

**Thirdly, this is something that I should have been putting in these starting author's notes all along. But better late than never, I guess. So far you guys that have been leaving reviews have done a decent job of it by yourselves but I must flat out say it: please don't leave any spoilers in your reviews! You see, several of the people who have been reading this story since day one have never actually played the first Bioshock and therefore have no idea of the major twists down the road. If you know what the twists are, you know that they are DAMN GOOD and shouldn't be spoiled. So please, either leave spoilers out of your reviews or make them so vague that those who have never played Bioshock won't get what you're talking about. Starting now, I'll be putting this at the start of every chapter of this story. **

**So, having said all of that, here's the fourteenth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": The Trails of Transition**

* * *

Behind the bulkhead, the four teens found an empty room even smaller than the one before, nothing more and nothing less. It had four walls, two made of glass and two of the heavy metal doors taking up the remaining sides. The glass sides offered no view other than a rock wall on either side, but they were happy with just having somewhere to rest. The most redeeming quality was the doors themselves, they were designed to completely seal off one building if it was destroyed or flooded. This design was what separated them from the hoard of insane splicers that were no doubt trying to kill them.

They were finally safe. None of them were here.

No Splicers.

No Big Daddies.

No Little Sisters.

No Monsters.

This was the first moment of peace after what felt like hours of fear and panic, even though it was less than one hour…much less in all likelihood. But that didn't matter. Nothing was trying to kill them, and nothing was going to break in.

So overcome with happiness at realizing that, Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah did the ultimate gesture of expressing graduate…they collapsed, subconsciously near each other.

For the first time in what felt like ages, they felt that they could finally breathe… really breath. True, the air was nearly as stale and stinking but they could breathe it in peace.

This newly found peace also allowed the teenagers to take note of several details not noticed by them before then they feared for their lives. Their clothes (whether Cody's light yellow shirt, Courtney's grey/white top, Gwen's top with blue/green sleeves, or Noah's red sweater) were now a mesh of splicer blood, seawater, and their own sweat. In the mostly constant darkness of the bulkhead, their arms still pulsed with blue electricity. The feeling inspired by the sparks was both that of power but also numbing annoyance. Though the teens never would have thought it could be possible, the notion of having one's hand able to create electricity was becoming less and less strange to them.

The next realization came from them discovering how their bodies felt. All four teenagers had their muscles aching all over and were very tired. But that didn't mean that the states of the four teenagers were equal. The damage that was endured by Cody and Noah was only a fraction of what Courtney and Gwen had experienced and were feeling now. Courtney had a bullet in her left shoulder and was constantly moved her arm and squeezing her hand, noticing how her left arm moved with difficult and her hand's grasp was weak. Gwen had searing pain in her right shoulder, she dreaded having to move it later, as she knew she would. Also, her head at been struck at point blank range by a metal pipe. She had experienced bad headaches before but none compared to this one.

Cody looked on the wounded Goth with eyes saying that they saw nothing else. In the fading blue light of the teens' combined inactive **Electro bolts**, Cody saw something. His teal eyes widened; his mind began race with countless worried thoughts before speaking.

"Dear God, Gwen, your eyes are bleeding!" Cody says with fright in his voice and face.

Gwen froze at this and tentatively touched around her eyes with her left hand. It came back slick with a substance other than water, but it wasn't blood. It was her eye shadow, almost all gone but leaving streaks on her face. Small patches of it still remained in place. The Goth attributed this development to both the sweat pouring from her face since getting here and falling face first onto the puddle filled floor of the Rapture Metro.

Gwen showed Cody that it wasn't blood thanks to the passive **Electro bolt** showing the liquid to be black instead of red. Cody was pleased. The Goth, despite her situation, sighed in relief at it not being blood. But then Gwen realized something. Given the force of the pipe that hit her head, she should have been dead. Her head should have exploded like a TNT filled watermelon. At the same time, she had another thought, this one about Courtney. Since a bullet was now lodged in her left shoulder, the Goth felt that she shouldn't be capable of using that arm at all. But, thought clearly weaker than her right arm, the C.I.T. had used it in the battle. While not ungrateful, Gwen was still curious.

How were her and Courtney's injures not as bad as they should have been?

These realizations lead to an emotional state that was extremely confusing to her. On the one hand, she was still injured, in pain, and in a world more crazy and dangerous than any she ever could have imagined. But on the other, she and the others were still alive. Gwen had never truly appreciated the simple beauty of having her heart continue to beat until tonight. And, despite her loner personality, she was almost glad to be with others.

* * *

These thoughts were interrupted when white noise started to fill the room as the shortwave radio still on Courtney came to life.

_"Now you've met Andrew Ryan, the bloody king of Rapture. You alright there kiddies, all your little bits and pieces make it outta there?"_ Atlas asks.

Courtney brought the device to her lips and responded, "We…we made it out in one piece. Bu-but I got sh-shot in my left shoulder and Gwen got hit really hard on her right shoulder and head. And were all really sore."

"_Well that last one is certainly understandable, lassy."_ Atlas says with a faint chuckle.

Hearing his Irish brogue again reminded Courtney about how soothing his voice was. She couldn't really explain why but something about it would immediately calm her shot nerves. She didn't know why but it was there and she, and the others, didn't fight it. Instead, they welcomed it; especially after the closest any of them ever came to dying.

However, Atlas' voice than became more serious as he asked Courtney, _"Can you move your left arm and is, uh, Gwen, still conscious and able to move her right arm?" _

After Atlas asked this question but before Courtney could respond, Gwen reached out. Using her right arm, pain shot through it but she was still able to grab the radio.

"Yeah, I'm still conscious. And though it feels like red-hot needles are being dug into it, I can still use my right arm. Courtney's left arm seems functional, thought its weaker." Gwen says, her voice a little on edge thanks to constant pain in her head and right arm.

To Gwen's shock (and anger), she heard Atlas release a sigh of relief after hearing that.

"Hey! There's nothing to sigh at. We're still in a lot of pain, Atlas!" Gwen snaps.

"_I have no doubts about that. Sorry if I seem uncarin' Gwen but I'm glad your alive. From what you've told me, you and Courtney should either be dead or very crippled."_ Atlas says, voice full of understand and regret but also a tiny bit of frustration.

This was enough to get past Gwen's strong frustration and make her feel very guilty.

"Look…I'm sorry Atlas. I didn't mean to snap. But this is a lot to take in, you know?" Gwen says with her raspy voice being low with shame.

"_I understand. I don't think I've even taken in all that there is to Rapture, and who knows how long my sorry, old Irish arse has been stuck here?"_ Atlas says with his voice light.

This got as chuckle out of the teens. Even though he released a light laugh, Noah thought of something, _'How long has he been down here? Could it really be for over sixty years?'_

Despite Noah thinking of that question, Gwen asked another, one much more relevant.

"Atlas, do you have any idea how it is that me and Courtney aren't dead, or as injured as we likely should be?" The Goth asked, shivering at the memory of their being injured.

There was a pause, likely from Atlas trying to figure out an answer.

"_I'm sorry to say but I'm not right sure me-self. But I've heard a few theories here and there. You know, the kind of a-woman-told-me-that-a-woman-told-her thing. But the one that makes the most sense to me is that its 'cause of the __**ADAM**__ now in your bodies." _**(1)**

"What do you mean?"

"_**ADAM**__ does a lot of things to the body, I doubt that anyone right knows all of them. But one I do know for a fact is that __**ADAM**__ makes the body tougher, more durable I mean. Sure, bein' shot or clubbed is gonna hurt like a savage Sunday punch to the ol' blarney stones but least ye can keep on swingin' like a proper barroom bogger, aye?"_

"So, even though it still hurts just as badly, we can endure far worse injuries than normal thanks to **ADAM**?" Gwen asks, having understood only a part of what Atlas just said.

"_Exactly. And it looks like the wee bit you got from that __**Electro bolt**__ has been doin' you all good so far. Luckily, there are some other means of healin' what ale's ya in Medical. But it can't compare to __**ADAM**__, the more of the sickly sauce ya get, the more your wounds will heal fuller and hurt less afterward." _

The teenager's minds were blown once again. So **ADAM** not only gave you superpowers but also was capable of reducing physical injuries while making your body tougher? No wonder the people down here got hooked on it and wanted a lot more of the stuff!

Noah grabbed the radio out of Gwen's hand, startling her. "Hold on, if **ADAM** makes you less vulnerable to injury, then how come we were able to kill so many splicers when they've likely ingested far more **ADAM** than us?"

"_Good question boyo. Again, this is only me tryin' to piece together what I've heard in rumors and happenstance but it seems that unless fresh __**ADAM**__ is constantly consumed, the __**ADAM**__ starts to weaken the body, actually causin' it the body to eat away at itself. That might be why their faces are so deformed, the __**ADAM**__'s breakin' their bodies down without any new __**ADAM. **__Though still tougher than any sods without any __**ADAM**__ at all, a splicer's body is still in pretty sorry shape from a lack of food and __**ADAM**__, Whereas you kiddies are healthy and just got __**ADAM**__, so you have all of the perks but none of the weaknesses. They've had __**ADAM**__, but not much, likely in a very long time. And you have those bulkin' Big Daddies to thank for keepin' the splicers from gettin' much __**ADAM**__." _

As crazy and initially illogical as it sounded, the more the teens thought about it, the more that explanation actually made sense. That would explain why, despite being so weak looking and likely starving, that the splicers had easily overpowered Courtney at first before Cody discovered the **Electro bolt** and through it the only **ADAM** they so far had.

It also presented a truly troubling paradox. They both had to ingest **ADAM** to keep themselves stronger than the splicers while not going insane but if they ingested not enough or too much they'd start to become just as weak (within the context of Rapture that is) as those same splicers.

How in the hell could they hope to maintain that tightrope while fighting for their lives!?

Choosing to not dwell on that kind of question, Courtney took the radio from Noah. Atlas' last words had reminded her of something. Having the radio, she asks, "Now that there no splicers…ha-how and why did they make the Big Daddies and Little Sisters?"

* * *

She heard a heavy sigh on the radio before Atlas responded with, _"Aye, that's true. I did say I'd tell ya that when you were safe. I'll be honest; part of me doesn't want to tell ya. But…you've got to know what you're jumpin' in to. Give me a sec; I've gotta have a drink first." _

For a few seconds all that filled the air were jarring clucking of ice being dropped into a glass and slow plopping of a liquid being poured over that ice into the same glass. With one hungry gulp, the glass was put back on whatever Atlas at it on. After that, Atlas began speaking to the teens once again. They were more curious about what he'd say.

"_Let's start with 'em Big Daddies. Its shady at best but I've heard that the first trances of those lumbering palookas were 'round long before 'em Lil' Sisters were, tinkered with mere months after __**ADAM**__ was first discovered. I think they were meant to produce workers who could survive in the open sea for long periods of time. I don't rightly know but what I do know is that if that was true, they were largely unused. Turns out Ryan and the others here couldn't stand 'em…until the __**ADAM**__ started runnin' too low, 'course."_

For a reason he couldn't explain, the blunt way Atlas said that got a chuckle out of Noah. Something about that last part tickled his cynical view of the world, a growing comfort.

"_They may look like the robots from those pulp magazine covers but they are men… mostly men in those suits, at least they once were. They were some of the poor blighters who had been caught breakin' a rule, didn't matter if it was wantin' Ryan's head on a platter or tryin' to leave Rapture or sayin' that this place was becoming a nightmare or just stealing an apple to not starve to death. It made no difference when these "candidates", as they would call 'em, are tranquilized and taken away." _

Atlas stopped for a moment, likely collecting himself. This was clearly not easy for him to say. The teens were certainly scared enough and they felt like the horrible stuff was yet come. And they were proven right when Atlas started speaking to them again.

"_They are a sad lot, you see, bein' made into a Big Daddy is a one-way street. They…they…they pump ya full of __**ADAM**__ and twist your genes…by-by removing your organs from ya body and puttin' ya in these massive vats…" _Atlas pauses for a moment.

In that moment, the teens looked at each, seeing their fearful expressions on the others. Any lingering chuckle within Noah's throat was effectively killed by this new info. Despite himself, Cody found his geeky nature taking over as he thought of Darth Vader; he got the impression that like the iconic Sith lord, the Big Daddies were more machine now than man…and couldn't be redeem themselves by saving any long-lost sons. Both Courtney and Gwen were questioning if they had heard Atlas correctly, if it was real. The two girls then felt themselves flashing back to when they killed their first splicers, to how the slap from Noah and the warm hug from Cody confirmed that this all was in fact real.

"_From what I understand, you see and feel everything they do to ya. I remember one fella who said that when first told 'bout the Big Daddies, Ryan had one order for the docs makin' 'em, '__Parasites don't deserve anesthetics'. __Some of my friends have been captured by Ryan's boys…sometimes I lose sleep over wonderin' whether any of 'em were made into those things! Have I seen them since and not even known it!?"_

Again, Atlas briefly fell silent. The teens were starting to feel guilty asking Atlas this question. As the pauses and his fluctuations in speech showed, it wasn't easy for him. From what it sounded like, a lot of his friends, among the small number of sane people down here, might have had to endure a process they couldn't wrap their minds around.

"_After…after that, then they graft your organs into those bulky diving suits. Once in, there's no way out…bein' removed from the suit will kill ya. Its like an Iron Lung, except you can still walk around. After that, they use Plasmids and tonics to make much stronger n' faster than your average Joe. And then they monkey with your mind, take away your free will, I mean. After they make you a mindless metal drone, they make you bond with a Little Sister for you to protect 'em with somethin' called __**'fairy-moans'**__, I think?"_

Despite his horror at what Atlas had told him so far, Noah found his voice coming up as he asks with unintended chuckle once again, "Do you mean **pheromones**, Atlas?"

"_Meebe that's it,"_ Atlas says, his voice slightly unruffled, his already thick Irish accent spreading thicker than normal over the word "maybe" as a result. _"They use phe-phero…those things…to control the Big Daddies by bondin' them to the Little Sisters."_

Sensing the brief change in Atlas' tone, the other teens glared at Noah for chuckling.

Seeing this, the Bookworm took the shortwave radio with a roll of his eyes and says, "Sorry for chuckling at you, Atlas."

"_That's alright. I don't pretend to know all the fancy five-dollars words down here." _Atlas says to Noah with his voice much lighter and at ease.

Shocking everyone, including himself, Noah then actually began to feel a little guilt. Acting on this, the Bookworm says, "Listen, if you don't want to say anymore right now, that's ok. We can learn the rest later."

"_I am grateful for the sentiment but I'm alright. You need to know the whole puzzle. Right now, you've only got half of it." _Atlas says before another brief pause, followed by the sounds of him taking another drink…and then a third right after.

The teens could easily guess why, he getting himself ready to talk about the Little Sisters.

"_Anyway, as I've already told ya, the demand for __**ADAM**__ skyrocketed after Plasmids were made. Everybody and their grandmother wanted to have superpowers. The demand was so great that the means of makin' __**ADAM**__ couldn't keep up with the demand. A bit after Plasmids came into the picture, people started dyin' left and right, a lot of parents too. There were a lot of orphans…and no orphanages, or any other type of charity in Rapture. So, bein' the kind of bugger Rapture was meant for, somebody built one."_

"I'm going to guess that this orphanage wasn't built solely to house these orphans, uh?" Noah asks.

"_Sadly, yes. The orphanage was a front, meant to hide the real aims…ones far less noble. You see, the guy that built the orphanage was a major figure here; he had a near monopoly on the Plasmid industry, Rapture's big cash crop, if ya will. He had a few brilliant scientists workin' for him…including one named __**Brigid Tenenbaum**__." _

Even though it only lasted for a microsecond, both Courtney and Gwen had the same exact thought after they heard this scientist's name…they both thought of Bridgette. For Courtney, the blond surfer was pretty much her only friend among the contestants. And for Gwen, despite having some fraction between them after her breaking up with Trent, the Goth still felt that Bridgette was one of the only sane contestants on Total Drama. The two girls were missing their shared friend…another reminder of the Hell they were in.

Unaware of these feelings from the two girls, Atlas continued speaking without pause.

"_She helped discover __**ADAM**__, and it was her who had the idea for how to make more. It was she who first suggested puttin' that __**sea slug**__ in the…"_

"What!? A sea slug!? You mean to tell me that these powers came from a mollusk!?" Noah interrupted.

"_Aye. Though the powers were man-made, the slugs offered the raw material needed." _Atlas says without any batting an eye, confirming its truth despite how mad it sounded.

"_Anyway, they take the slug and attach it to the lining of some small one's stomach. For some daft reason I can't figure the salty snails didn't like the little lads, only the girls. Dunno why? Regardless, the two become one. Sim-be-odd-ec is what I think they call it." _Atlas says, stretching outthe clearly unfamiliar word of "symbiotic" by each syllable. _"The little human girl becomes a Little Sister. Then they do somethin' to 'em, something to their minds…make them actually like gathering __**ADAM**__."_

"Do you mean **mental conditioning**?" Noah asks.

After Atlas confirms that is what others called it, Gwen couldn't help but ask, "You mean like Pavlov's dogs, the thing with the bell and food?" **(2)**

"That's what it sounds like to me." Noah says, a look of horror etched on his brown face. With his extensive knowledge of the human mind and bleak outlook on the world, the Bookworm had a better grasp than many as to how it was possible to program these Little Sisters into actually finding enjoyment in drinking **ADAM** from corpses. It scared him.

"_Whatever ya call it, that's what they did to those little tykes. And after that they…that long needle, that's how it gets __**ADAM**__, from corpses. Like you all saw in the theater. The Lil' Sisters call 'em __**"angels"**__. Believe me, there's plenty of those __**"angels"**__ down here. Seems like takin' Plasmids makes men and women make some __**ADAM**__ in their torsos. After drinking that stuff down like it was whiskey, they throw it right back up again. But, from what I've been told, the amount of __**ADAM**__ made is twenty, thirty times greater. And…" _

Again, Atlas fell silent before resuming speaking. Now his voice seemed worn down.

"_Of all of the things in this hell, that's the thing that gives me the most horrible nightmares. The thought of those wee-little girls doin' stuff like that; it just cuts me up inside. But there's more. Soon enough, they started runnin' out of orphans. They turned to kidnappin'…I highly doubt there's a single girl in Rapture that's not a Lil' Sister. I've known some people whose girls were taken…I can't begin to imagine their despair." _

For a third time, Atlas paused before continuing. When he spoke again, his voice was so sad and so raw…it was the voice of someone who had stared into the abyss.

"_I take back what I said…that's the thing that cuts me up the most, that chills me so. I imagine the parents…the little girls crying for their ma's and pa's as they're puttin' that slug in 'em and wipin' their minds "clean" as if they were dirty windows…its too much. There are no children in Rapture. If not for me little __**Patrick**__, I'd have forgotten what a happy child sounds like, how beautiful the giggling of the wee ones can be, long ago. Please…please…help me get my family out of this place…please…" _

All of the teens could sympathize with this view; this was more horrifying than they ever could have guessed! Men turned into soulless automatons, literally losing everything that made them human: their bodies, their minds, and their free will! Little girls implanted with parasites, orphans conditioned to enjoy becoming a fangless vampire of the dead!

As Atlas had explained what happens to create a Little Sister, Gwen had her hands over her mouth. The normally strong-willed Goth was almost reduced to tears by this reveal. Courtney was in more of less the same boat, only her hands were placed over her heart. While she couldn't fully uproot her sympathizes for Objectivism, they were weakened. Noah thought back to his family, in particular his nine siblings. The Bookworm never had any strong attachment to any of them but hearing about the Big Daddies and Little Sisters made him thankful that they would never have to experience anything like Rapture.

But it was the group's Tech Geek who had the greatest and most shocking reaction. Cody felt within him a righteous fire the likes of which he never knew he had. This was too much, even after everything that he had seen and endured…the Little Sisters were too much! How could he stand by and allow so many innocent girls to be abused like this!? He was healthy; he had superpowers…why not try to save all of Rapture's Little Sisters?

But then Cody felt his right hand becoming numb; he saw the weakening blue glow. The Tech Geek then turned to Courtney and Gwen, seeing their injuries as if for the first time. He remembered how they had used almost all of their bullets and **EVE** hypos just now. He remembered seeing the Big Daddy; remembered the fear that made him wet himself.

Without any visual indicator, Cody realized the horrible truth, or at least the latest one that is…it would be a miracle if he and the others simply got out of Rapture alive. They were just four teenagers; contestants on a reality television show for goodness sake! Even with superpowers, there was no way they'd be able to save any of these Little Sisters. Rapture was simply too massive, too overwhelming…and they were so small and weak.

And for Cody, this wasn't anything new. All of his life, he was small and weak. Cody knew he could never be anything more than that. He was the pathetic tweeb who no girl ever fancied because he was always overshadowed by the bigger and sexier alpha-males. This season itself offered proof of that…he had not done one noteworthy thing for his team. In fact, he almost felt like that it was because of Sierra alone that he hadn't been eliminated before this point. Like always, this honest but hard view of himself hurt him.

But maybe, just maybe…he could at least be for once, if only partially, not small and weak? Maybe if he could get Gwen out of Rapture, he could find value in himself and be able at long last to silence those thundering self-doubts echoing endlessly in his skull?

Thinking of that, Cody's thoughts drifted elsewhere…to a much darker place. Grabbing the shortwave radio, Cody asks, "How, exactly, are we suppose to get more **ADAM**?"

For a few seconds, only the faintest of static grumblings came from the shortwave radio.

"_Well…every new Plasmid or tonic ya find will give you a wee bit of __**ADAM**__ but, but…"_

Atlas sighed and paused again, this time for a little longer, before continuing.

"_Listen, I ain't gonna sugarcoat it for ya…as much as I'd like to. If you kiddies want to make it out of this nightmare alive, your gonna need to __**harvest**__ 'em Lil' Sisters. As I said, the __**ADAM**__ is made by the slug in their stomachs…to get the __**ADAM**__ ya need the slug. You gotta remove the slug from the sister." _

"What happens to the Little Sister after you remove the slug?" Cody asks.

For all long space of time, there was only silence. Atlas offered no answers and no one else dared to speak. Everyone within the bulkhead was reeling from what was implied.

"Ya-you…you do-don't, mean…" Cody eventually tries to ask amid his reeking horror.

"_I'm afraid so, boyo."_ Atlas says with his voice the heaviest the teens ever heard it. _"The only way to get the __**ADAM**__ you need to survive is to…to ka-__**kill the Little Sisters**__…" _

Cody, and the other teens, couldn't speak after hearing that. They could barely breath. Their minds were becoming violent oceans, churning with waves of conflicting emotions. The sympathy they felt for the Little Sisters now clashing with the realization that despite that they would have to murder them…to see the corpse of a little girl…a Little Sister…

All of them returned to when they killed their first splicers…and how sick they felt after. They could only guess that the same feeling would exist after killing a Little Sister…only magnified a million fold because it wouldn't be a psycho trying to kill them, it would be a little girl who would likely be cowering in fear and begging for her life…for **its** life.

Amid their shared revulsion, the teens almost missed Atlas's voice when it returned.

"_I-I know…I know how that must sound…believe me, I cringed just sayin' it to ya. But its gotta be done. As hard as it is to say, without more __**ADAM**__ you're as good as dead. Remember, they ain't little girls anymore. In body and mind, they ain't human anymore. I know its not as easy as I make it sound but you gotta not dwell on that sort of thing…it will only slow you down. And if you slow down in Rapture…you stop for good, __**dead.**__ Please promise me that you'll try to not worry about crossin' that bridge till ya get there. Would you kindly promise me that?" _

"Yes, Atlas. I promise that we won't worry about that until the time comes. Right guys?" Cody says before looking at the other three teens. Despite their horror-filled faces, they all nodded their heads. There was more than enough on their plate as it was; there was no space for bad things that might happen when there were so many others things that were.

"_Good on ya. Believe me, it will help…have I lied to you yet, boyo?"_ Atlas asks in relief.

* * *

Before Cody could answer that question, they noticed that there was a brief vibration. Moments after that vibration…the left door of the bulkhead started to swing open.

They had reached the Medical Pavilion!

Cody, Courtney, Gwen, and Noah were able to once again enter Rapture. They were about to abandon the only safety they've had here.

With his feet feeling heavy with the new information he had just learned clashing with his greater resolve to leave this hell, Cody was the first teen to exit the bulkhead. The others quickly followed suit.

As his moss-green sneakers began walking on the tiles of the Medical Pavilion, Cody's mind buzzed with so many thoughts, still trying to process everything that he'd learned.

One thought in particular caused Cody's mind to find no respite from itself.

'_When the times comes will I be able to do it…will I be able to kill a Little Sister?'_

* * *

**All right, so there you have it…the latest chapter of "Total Drama Raptured"! **

**I am both pleased and disappointed with this chapter. Part of the reason is because this is a chapter in which several things are made clear to the teens and you readers. The main things that are explained are: how is it that the teens will be able to survive things like being shot (or at least not as injured as they should be), why the splicers are both so strong and yet so weak compared to the teens, what exactly was involved with the creations of both the Big Daddies and Little Sisters while really focusing on the many things that are so horrifying about that, and that there will come a point where the four teenagers will be force to choose whether to kill the Little Sisters or not. Despite the mostly mechanically need to explain these things; I hope it was nevertheless enjoyable to read. Please let me know in a review, ok? **

**While I don't normally like to explain the meanings behind the chapter titles, I feel like I must do so with this one. "The Trails of Transition" is meant to have two meanings. 1. It takes place during the literal transition from "Welcome to Rapture" to "Medical Pavilion". 2. It highlights the transitions involved with the creations of the Big Daddies and Little Sisters. Hopefully this title now makes sense…hopefully. **

**(1) While writing this chapter, in particular Atlas, I had a minor epiphany. You see, as you've likely guessed, Atlas is not just Irish but very salt-of-the-earth kind of Irish but despite that, a lot of what Atlas says doesn't sound particularly Irish aside from the accent. So, I decided that I should try to portray that Irish accent better. Also, I likely didn't have to but I feel the need to inject a little bit more "Irishness" into Atlas by having him use actually Irish sayings and proverbs. If this makes the character too hard to understand, please tell me and I will stop the madness! But until I learn of your views, here's what the only Irish saying used so far mean:**

"**A-woman-told-me-that-a-woman-told-her" means, "Someone else told me that". **

**(2) What Gwen is referring to is a classic experiment by Russian physiologist Dr. Ivan Pavlov. In the early 1900's, Dr. Pavlov would ring a bell right before presenting some dogs with some food. This caused the dogs to salivate for the tasty food. After doing this enough times, the dogs would begin salivating when they heard the bell, even when there was no food present. The point is that it is possible to change how something reacts to a stimulus when it experiences the same circumstances with that stimulus enough times. But there's a darker side to this theory as well, he also used electric shocks on dogs (not sure if the same ones) that came after the ticking of a metronome and eventually the dogs would yelp in pain at just the ticking of a metronome without any shocks. And this isn't limited to dogs, experiments since Pavlov's time show that humans, in particular children are just as mentally malleable to this type of conditioning as dogs are. I'm not going to pretend that I have extensive knowledge of this process or the debates that likely came afterward regarding its legitimacy…I really don't have any clue about such things. However, what I can say with some certainty is that if a child were conditioned enough starting at a early enough age, they could be made to enjoy activities that someone without that same conditioning would be horrified by and never consider. **

**As always, I'd be beyond grateful for reviews expressing your opinions. In particular, I'd like to know your views on: explaining the processes of making the Big Daddies and Little Sisters, Atlas' portrayal, the reactions of the teenagers, and my explanation for the increasing toughness of the teenager's bodies in Rapture. **

**So, next time we turn to the teenagers risking their lives within Medical Pavilion! **

**But until that point, please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word!**


	15. Medical Asylum Made Insane Asylum

**Hello everyone! So, after roughly a month and a half, here's the next chapter! :) **

**I had originally intended to focus on updating "Mad Mikey" next but two (or three) MASSIVE developments forced my hand to update this story first. And these MASSIVE developments are thanks to two awesome fans of this story, ****Ander Arias and CMR Rosa! I must thank these two immensely for their contributions! **

**Ander Arias, thank you so much for giving me my very first piece of fan-art! And your choice of scene, Gwen "kissing" Courtney on the beach was awesome! :) **

**CMR Rosa, thank you for creating an ****actual TVtropes page for this story and for commissioning the great Deviantart artist VaultMan to make a second piece of fan-art! **

**Seriously, you guys are more incredible than I can describe with words here. Thank you so much! Plus your efforts have given this story so many views recently! **

**Please, if you like this story, go to Deviantart and take a look at "Breath of Life" by Arias87 (Ander Arias) and "Cody and Gwen-Raptured" by VaultMan. Both works do this story serious justice and make me happier than I can't say here for you now! **

**Sorry for the countless explanation points but I'm so HAPPY about these things! :) **

**And as always starting now, please try to avoid big-twist spoilers in the reviews, ok? **

**Having gotten that justified bit of shout-out out of the way, here's the fifteenth chapter of "Total Drama Raptured": Medical Asylum Made Insane Asylum **

* * *

After the teens had slowly stepped out of the bulkhead and entered the Medical Pavilion, they all took note of the world outside of that bulkhead. It was quite the chance from the bulkhead.

Instead of the totally suffocating darkness of the bulkhead, the first part of Medical Pavilion they saw was only mostly suffocating darkness that was broken by the occasional florescent light. Directly above them was one of those florescent lights, a bulb of thick glass casting off light of a musky yellow color that was jutting from the ceiling. Below this light was a couch, that with it's beyond mildew-infested fabric swayed any of the teens from taking a load off, however tempting that notion might be.

Of greater concern was a poster, now greatly crinkled and worn down by time. It was a burgundy rectangle with a few lines of muted gold that formed a mostly complete circle at the center. Within the center of this circle was the image of a woman. Like the other advertisements of Rapture, it reeked of the cheerful artifice of posters from the 1950s. This woman's image had piercingly bright green eyes, long curly black hair, thin bright red lips, rosy cheeks, and a pink flower placed over her right ear. But what were of even interest than the image of the poster were the words presented, also in muted gold: **WITH ADAM THERE'S NO REASON NOT TO BE BEAUTIFUL! DR. STEINMAN'S COSMETIC ENHANCEMENTS!**

For some reason that none of the teens could explain, this poster filled them with worry.

Ignoring this poster and the second working **VITA-CHAMBER **they had encountered, most of the teenagers traveled down the very short corridor that lead from the bulkhead. From there, they found themselves in what appeared before to be a large reception area. A neon sign, a much larger version of the pink neon sign with two black snakes intertwined around a staff with **MEDICAL PAVILION** across it that they had seen right before entering the bulkhead, was precariously hung over the receptionist's desk. The chains holding it up on its left side had all but snapped. On each side of this desk there was a stairway that slightly curved, leading to what was the main entrance of the actual medical area being directly above the grey receptionist's desk. The ceiling was an arched glass dome, with eerie blue lights from it reaching the dark floor below it.

As they were taking note of scenery around them, a loud, pain filled "Gah!" filled the air!

Turning around, Cody, Courtney, and Noah saw Gwen holding her head with clenched teeth. She had barely moved from the space in front of the bulkhead door. The head injury she received from that splicer during the battle was hurting worse than she thought. Rushing over to her, Cody and Courtney helped her over the moldy couch. The Goth resisted at first when she saw the couch but the pain in her skull ended this quickly.

Still holding her head tightly, Gwen weakly muttered through the pain as she said, "Wh-what gives? I thou-thought you two liked me?" Her smirk betrayed any actual hatred.

While Cody was tripping over his own words to explain himself, Courtney merely smirked back as she says, "Would you rather fall onto the floor from the pain, Gwen?"

"N-no…no, I guess not." Gwen says with Courtney's comment taking her mind off of the pain for a few seconds. "But this co-couch is really…really wet and disgusting to sit on."

"I'll take your word for it." Courtney says. "Just sit there while we have a quick look around."

"Believe me, I'm not going anywhere anytime soon." Gwen says, her smirk clashing with the implications of that statement. As her efforts to take a few small steps had shown, right now she couldn't even walk, let alone defend herself if any more splicers came.

She wasn't the only one to realize this. With Courtney starting to leave Gwen, Cody chimed in with, "Actually, I think I'll use a first aid kit on Gwen while your checking things out, Courtney."

Courtney was tempted to lash out at Cody for challenging her orders until she realized that it probably would help out Gwen. Plus only two people were needed to look around.

"Alright. That's fine. But make sure you use her kit, save yours for yourself for later."

Seeing that Gwen was fumbling for her first aid kit and Cody was starting to open it up, the C.I.T. left them to join up with Noah.

* * *

Meeting up with the Bookworm, the C.I.T. and him ventured into the main lobby.

Naturally, the two of them went towards the receptionist's desk. Like everything else in Rapture, the large and bulky grey desk was a mess, covered in dirt and fresh rubble. A long lamp brought the illumination aside from the vague blue lightning from above.

When they got to it, suddenly a young female voice appeared out of nowhere! They got tense!

While not saying anything as the voice played, out of fear of what it might be, Courtney couldn't help but think that the voice sounded familiar. But how many female voices had she heard in Rapture that didn't end up dying because of her or the other teenagers?

"_The Parasite hates three things. Free markets. Free will. Free men."_

With nothing more, the voice vanished, behind the slight screeching of some machine. It was then that the two teenagers realized that what they had heard was some kind of **public address announcement,** likely meant to ensure the citizens of Rapture that everything was fine as their entire world slowly went to shit that were now trapped in a continuous loop because whoever was controlling them had likely long since died. Most importantly, this meant that the voice wasn't coming from something trying to kill them.

Courtney and Noah felt relief…

…until they looked over the desk and saw the bloody corpse of a woman on the other side!

Any relief in Courtney or Noah left as suddenly as it appeared. Noah was not pleased.

"Really Rapture? You couldn't give us one moment's reprieve from your nightmares!"

"Noah, you're talking to a city! You think that it will answer you? That's impossible!"

"Hey, I've fired electricity out of my fingers and I've seen men made into steam-punk golems…as far as I'm concerned all bets are off as far as what's possible or impossible!"

"Be that as it may," Courtney says, barely keeping herself composed under her irritation at his behavior and her own nervousness. "Be quiet! You'll bring more splicers here!"

While the Bookworm looked bitterly at the C.I.T., he saw what she meant and shut up.

The C.I.T. couldn't help herself as a smirk appeared on her brown lips. Even in a hellhole like Rapture, people listening to her could always improve Courtney's mood. And right now, she really needed whatever little boosts she could get. While she would never admit it out loud, Courtney had been thinking basically the same thing as Noah. She'd kill, maybe literally, for some small bastion of goodness in Rapture aside from Atlas.

With that thought dominating her mind, she and Noah searched the area around the desk. Next to a knocked over cash register they found sixteen Rapture dollars. Around the woman's corpse they found both a first aid kit and an **EVE** hypo. Despite cringing at them both being covered in dyed blood, the teens took both of them. Courtney put all of these items in her large flower-pattern covered bag, already planning on both the first aid kit and **EVE** hypo to the Goth who she now considered "friend-ish" since she now had none of either vital item thanks to Cody using her first aid kit on her at this very moment. Plus, as the course of events had so far shown, Gwen was the only one of worth in a fight.

As she gathered up the items, Noah noticed an audio diary on the desk. He pressed play.

* * *

**(Audio Dairy: Released Today-** **Diane McClintock)**

"_Dr. Steinman said he'd release me today. Ryan didn't come to see me since the New Year's attack. Not once. But Dr. Steinman was very attentive. He told me that once the scar tissue was gone, he was going to fix me right up. Make me prettier than any girl I've ever seen. He's sweet all right... and so interested in my case!" _The familiar voice of Diane says, this time actually sounding happy as opposed to bitter or frightened.

* * *

As the audio diary had played, Courtney had thought of two things. Firstly, she thought about how this Dr. Steinman, whose poster they had seen, was that goodness that she had wanted to discover. After all, he made this woman's life so much easier after that attack. And the second thing that she realized Noah actually put into words.

"Uh, looks like Miss McClintock's the voice of those Rapture PSAs? Odd, eh?"

A little shocked that Noah realized the same thing she had, Courtney simply nodded her head. She nearly missed that Noah had mumbled something else out about a second later.

"What was that, Noah?"

"Oh, I realized that I recognized something. I've heard about this Dr. Steinman before."

Courtney was quite confused. "How…where, how did you hear about this Steinman?"

"Why from books, naturally. But I think what you meant to ask was, 'What did you hear about this Steinman', yes?" The Bookworm says, displaying that arrogant smirk of his.

This smirk only increased when he saw Courtney's face, struggling to not shout at him.

'_I can almost understand why Duncan would get such a rise out of seeing her so mad.'_ Noah thought to himself.

"Yes. **What** did you hear about this Steinman, Noah?" Courtney asks very, very mad.

"That's better, and now that I understand your question, I can explain that to you." Noah says, wanting one last little rise out of the C.I.T. before explaining what he had learned. "Doctor J. S. Steinman, and before you ask, no, I haven't ever found what the J or the S in his name stand for, was one of the most skilled and respected figures in the medical profession. Even though Steinman was a successful doctor who was trained as an orthopedic surgeon, his highest accolades were earned in the plastic surgery. In terms of plastic surgery the only contemporary of his who surpassed him in prestige and international acclaim was Sir Harold Gillies, the freaking father of plastic surgery itself."

"How on Earth could plastic surgery possibly be something held in such high regard? I refuse to believe that people who gave Hollywood celebrates tummy-tucks were praised."

"Oh, Courtney, Courtney." Noah says, shaking his head in mock disappointment. "Plastic surgery didn't start out as the luxury item of the ridiculously wealthy Hollywood elites. The origins of it are not quite so squeaky clean. But to answer your question, there were actually two things that made plastic surgery so respected and they were called World War I and War World II. You might have heard of those two rather obscure world events. I'm going to spare you the gory details but let's just say that many of the good ol' boys that had severed America's army got the reward of having their faces royally fucked up." **(1)**

After hearing that explanation, Courtney was something that she always hated being…wrong. But once she heard that Courtney quickly pieced together how that chain of events might have played out. Even so, the C.I.T. thought of something else.

"So what is this Steinman doing down here?"

"Now that's actually a good question." Noah says, actually being honest with Courtney. The Bookworm taps his chin in thought for a few moments. "Um, I might have a answer. Andrew Ryan disappeared without a trance in 1947, but he wasn't the only person. Many highly regarded professionals in fields ranging from medicine to botany to theater all also disappeared then and for roughly the next five to ten years after that. Many thought it was a communist conspiracy to weaken America, feeding into the growing paranoia of what would become the Cold War, but noteworthy individuals from other nations vanished too. Steinman was one of them. It looks like those noteworthy individuals came to Rapture." **(2)**

"Wait a minute! If that were true, that would mean that this place is over sixty years old? That's insane! There's no way that anyone could still be alive down here after that long!"

"Ah, you're just noticing this now, eh?" Noah says with that smirk that made Courtney want to punch him in the face. "Then maybe you can explain to me why this entire city as a overpowering retro feel to it?"

Courtney, for the second time today, was unable to come up with a reasonable rebuttal, and oddly enough to the same basic question of how a place could still be functioning.

"Look." Noah says, his voice and face become more serious and abandon his usual snark. "I understand your confusion. To be perfectly honest, I don't have an answer myself. Everything in my mind is screaming at the madness of that idea that this city has been down here for over sixty years and is not only still working, relatively speaking, but also has anyone left alive in it. But that's what I see. And since we've got more urgent matters to worry about, I think we should ignore those questions for the time being, agreed?"

Not being able to think of anything to add to that line of thinking, Courtney just nodded.

As she did so, Noah simply took a look at the open and not very large area around them.

"Well, as nice as it was to give you that little history lesson, I think it safe to assume that there are not any splicers here. Don't you agree?"

Courtney nodded her head again.

"And since we haven't seen any of them down here, I'd rather not risk bumping into any of them on the upper level. Hopefully we can avoid that all together. Something feels off about it, agreed?"

For a fourth time now, she nodded her head. But then Courtney spoke after doing so. "Agreed. Let's see how Gwen is doing?"

"And Cody too, don't forget the Goth's little clingy, geeky remora fish."

Without any indication of Noah's words, Courtney began to walk towards the others. To her shock, she was that the Goth and Geek were actually approaching them. Even more shocking was that Gwen was walking on her own power. True she was still clearly having a little difficulty but she was walking nevertheless. Cody was right next to her, looking as if he was ready to catch at any moment if she started to lose her balance.

'_I bet he's hoping for Gwen to fall so he can press his body against hers, little pervert!' _Courtney thought to herself as she and Noah approached where they were about to reach.

* * *

As they neared each other, Courtney pleased to hear what Gwen was saying to Cody. She was saying that she was thankful for him helping her and being worried but she was fine. While the words were normal, the Goth's tone was bitter, barely holding back irritation.

But what got the mocha-skinned girl's attention more was a machine they were near. It was a machine that was as tall as her with two sets of 3 by 4 of large bright red buttons. Beneath each button was a small picture of an item along with a number. And beneath all of these red buttons was a large opening. On the right side of the machine was a slot for money. Above the red buttons were nearly a dozen organ pipes surrounding a square with a glowing image on it. The glowing image was that of a clown with a white face, red starts painted around his eyes, a small blue pointed cap, and a speaker at the mouth. Written around the clown's face were three words, each having a very different style. The first word was, **CIRCUS**, and it was in a bright red with points coming off of the letters along the top of illumined square horizontally above the clown's face. After that came the word, **OF**, which was gold and encased in an equally golden circle that was to the right of the clown's blue hat. And finally there was the words, **VALUES**, which was in bright white letters with a similar typed of spiked font to the letters the first word but appearing vertically to the clown's right side instead of horizontally above the clown's face.

The teens met right in front of this odd looking machine with a clown's picture on it. Courtney was about to speak when all of a sudden the machine started to come to life!

Coming from the organ pipes the cheerful music one would normally find on a circus carousel started playing. Moments later, this joined by the sounds of a creepy and disjointed laughter that was matched by a just as creepy and disjointed jolly voice.

"_Ha ha ha ha ha! Kill your cravings at the __**Circus of ValUES**__!"_

"_Oy, those give me the creeps! I've never trusted a clown and I never will! _Atlas says as the radio in Cody's pocket crackles to life. _"Looks like ya found a __**Vending Machine**__. I remember when they use to sell just candy bars and soda pop. But now most of 'em got bullets, first aid kits, and __**EVE **__hypos. Then again, that's how the market went after the Civil War of Rapture got started. And Ryan, being the humanitarian that he was said, 'Let's not lessen the ways that people can kill each other but let's try to profit from it'!" _

"That does sound like something Andrew Ryan would do." Noah says. "So, that means we can buy stuff from these machines?"

"_If ya got the proper pennies, 'course. Ha, ha." _Atlas says with a chuckle in his throat. _"But just don't try to…"_

**BANG! **

Noah fired one of his pistol rounds at the vending machine, overpowered Atlas' message! Hoping to cause the machine to release all of its contents when damaged, the Bookworm was disappointed to see that the machine didn't have so much as scratch on it.

"…_shoot or otherwise damage the machine 'cause they were made to last and nothing short of a B-52's full payload could likely break 'em."_ Atlas continued with his recently cheerful, chuckling voice now significantly less lively and now greatly underwhelmed.

"Sorry, I had to know. I refuse to waste any of my Rapture dollars if I don't have to." Noah says.

"_Ah. A bit of the ol' 'a fool's money is not long in his pocket', eh?_ _Well, well, well…ya sure you're from the surface? You sound like a resident of Rapture." _Atlas says with the cheerful chuckle returned to his Irish voice. **(3)**

"My God…your right!" Noah says, gripping his head in actual fright. "I'm becoming a capitalist!"

This comment elicited chuckles from Cody and Gwen while causing Courtney to sneer.

"Really Noah," Courtney says angrily. "You think you can condemn an entire philosophy of sound economic thought because you want to not waste any of your money!?"

Gwen and Cody looked at each other in confusion at the passion of that statement from Courtney. Neither of them knew of the recent internal debate within her. While the C.I.T.'s sympathies for Objectivism were greatly weakened by learning the truth about the Little Sisters, they weren't destroyed. Plus she didn't want to compare the economic system she believed in and would be a major success story in with this nightmare world.

"Oh yes, because a line of thinking devoted solely to making as much money as possible without any hindrances except purely legal ones has worked out so well before and now." Noah says. Truthfully, he didn't have an opinion that different from the C.I.T. but he was starting to find Courtney's abrasive temperament to be very annoying. The Bookworm then started "coughing". **"*****Cough*** Great Depression, current recession. ***Cough*****"**

Courtney was about to retort, which would likely involve shouting, when…

"ENOUGH! Both of you!" Gwen shouts in anger while holding throbbing her head with one of her hands. "This just in, my head is still killing me and your bickering isn't making it any better. And your bickering might get me killed! So will you both shut up!"

Taken off guard by the outburst from the, until this point, calm and quiet Goth; Courtney and Noah reluctantly stopped their verbal bout before it could truly escalate.

Finding her temper getting the better of her, the Goth violently grabbed the radio from Cody's hands.

"Atlas, does this machine have those means of healing my aching head that you mentioned while we were traveling to here!?" Gwen asks with her mood still bitter.

"_Remind me to never get on your sour side, Gwen. Ya can sound like a real frightin' little banshee when mad." _Atlas says with a chuckle._ "But I'm afraid not. Those set ups are in another part of Medical. While me and most call what your lookin' for __**Health Stations**__, the proper name on the signs is __**Prime Health Units**__. I'll tell ya what. Rapture might be a stain on God's Creation but I'll give it this much, the docs got some really good toys."_

"What do you mean?"

"_I guess I gotta explain this to ya as well. Though with all this explainin' I'm doin', I'm likely to get a real hoarse voice instead of these heavenly melodies your hearin' now."_ Atlas says, taking a self-deprecating shot at himself, to the laughter all four teenagers. _"As you can likely gather, Medical Pavilion was the hub for all of Rapture's medical business. They were fine enough docs I'm sure but everythin' changed after __**ADAM**__. It didn't take long before all illness was gone in Rapture."_

"Wh…wait a minute! What do you mean by that, Atlas!?" Cody exclaims in shock.

"_I mean exactly what I said, boyo. All illness was gone in Rapture. That glowing green goo seems to have self-healing properties; any foreign germs can be whisked away in mere seconds and any injury can be cured just as fast once you've got a doc whose knows the ropes of __**ADAM**__. You wouldn't believe half of the things I've seen thanks to __**ADAM**__. Broken bones can be snapped back into place, good as new. Hearts on their last beats can gain another thirty years of good use. I've seen men who had paralyzed limbs who could use 'em with ease. People who smoked so much that they had enough tar in their lungs to pave a highway got them squeaky clean. Imagine that, that smoking could give people lung cancer? Everything from syphilis to the common cold gone just like that!" _**(4)**

Despite it seeming to be happening every five minutes or so, the teens' minds were blown! But then again, what other reaction could there be to such earthshattering information. Almost any illness or injury could be healed with absolute certainty!

The teenagers couldn't articulate words for several moments. During those moments, the teens pondered the implications of this. While Gwen and Cody thought of the general ones, Courtney and Noah's thoughts were far more specific. For the C.I.T., part of her was unable to fight the urge to get some of this stuff to sell it to the highest bidder! In contrast to Courtney who was thinking of the future, Noah was focused on the past.

"If **ADAM** could cure any injury or illness, how did Medical Pavilion stick around?" Noah asks Atlas.

"_Good question, boyo! It didn't seem like the docs would keep their jobs at first. Why have doctors when just about anything can be cured with a single needle of __**ADAM**__? But then folks started to get uglier than a fight with a hammererd hardman with a hard neck thanks to the splicing they were doin'. Ironically, the docs who __**ADAM**__ nearly put outta business found a new lease on life after switching over to cosmetic surgery. Who coulda guessed that fixing the outside instead of the inside would have went so south, eh?" _**(5)**

"What do you mean? We haven't seen or heard a single splicer since getting here." Courtney asked, now slightly unnerved by the previously comforting silence around her.

"_Then you should thank the Heavenly Feather above for that, lassy. They're here alright. Medical was the place where the first hints of Rapture's physical decay could be seen. Since it was where the "sick" were sent, this place was quickly overrun with splicers as patients. Soon these "patients" outnumbered the docs and nurses nearly ten to one. With so many of the bastards in one area they became uncontrollable, so Ryan had the place locked up. It became the first part of Rapture to be isolated from the rest of 'em."_

"What about the other ones, the sane people still inside?" Cody asked, fearing the answer.

Atlas sighed on the other end of the line. _"Maybe you didn't hear me boyo; __Ryan__ had the Medical Pavilion __**locked up**__. It was a blight to him, foul proof that Rapture was in decay. He preferred the folks here bein' mad or murdered than admit that his "utopia" was fallin' apart and needed to be changed. This place is one of the reasons I stood against the haughty bastard! But we knew better than to open that nut house back up. And the loose former patents weren't the only reason why, or even the worst part of Medical."_

"And you brought us here!?" Courtney shouts, mixing equal anger and fright as she shuddered at the thought of those unlucky individuals trapped inside.

Again, Atlas sighed, this time far more regretfully. _"Aye; that I did. Believe me, I didn't want too. But Ryan left me with no other choice. It was either here or bein' trapped where you just were. And you all heard the fists poundin' on the bulkhead door." _

As Atlas remained silent for a few moments, the teens realized that he was correct.

"_Now find your way to Emergency Access, it'll lead straight to the bathysphere dock outta here. The door should be on the your right. Believe me, you want outta here right fast! Hopefully, you won't need to find out why. Let's just say there's still plenty of screamin' 'round here." _Atlas directed before shutting the radio off.

* * *

Walking together past the Circus of Values machine, the teens discovered the doorway. The white neon letters saying **EMERGENCY ACCESS** gave them the obvious hint. As with most of the doors of Rapture, the one to Emergency Access was a shudder door. However, unlike the previous ones, this one didn't smoothly open as they approached it. Instead, the doors were constantly moving a few inches before coming back together.

The reason why this was happening was obvious as the neon sign above the doors. There was something in the middle of the doors preventing them from closing normally. Without any words spoken, Gwen and Courtney each held one of the metal sheet doors while Cody and Noah pulled the metal object out of the pathway of the sliding doors.

Once the object had been removed, the doors seemed to open up automatically when one of the teens approached them. After a few tests to make sure, they looked at the object.

It was very familiar to them. They recognized it by its boat motor shape and size, its helicopter like blades, and its machine gun, a belt-fed M1A1 Thompson submachine gun. It was a security bot, like the one that saved their lives from the first splicer they met. The memory of that chilled all of them, but the relief of seeing another bot balanced it out.

"_What ya got there, Cody?"_ Atlas' voice said as the radio came back to life.

After Gwen handed Cody the radio, the Tech Geek answered with, "It looks like a robot."

"_Ya mean like the one called by the camera earlier? Is it deactivated?" _

"Yes, and yes."

"_GREAT!"_ Atlas happily shouts, catching everyone off-guard by his suddenness and joy. _"Do ya see a compartment on the right side near the upper light that looks like a box?"_

Cody looked. "Yes."

"_Listen to me carefully, Cody. You'll see a knob at the center of that box. Twist it open. And after ya do that, you'll see a bunch of wired cards with strings attached. Grab 'em. Please do that for me Cody, would you kindly?"_

Though not sure what this would do, Cody obeyed Atlas' instructions. But once we had placed his hand on those wired cards, a very small needle suddenly shot out and pricked his finger, causing a few drops of his blood to drip onto the sack of odd wired cards.

"Ow!" Cody shouted in shock. The Tech Geek started sucking on his finger to stop the blood flow. After doing so he angrily asks, "What was that for, Atlas?"

"_Sorry boyo but that was necessary. Now those wired cards, __**flashers**__, they call 'em, show your genetic code."_

"What's so important about that?"

"_Lots, boyo. Lots. You see, you kiddies can now __**hack**__ some of the devices in Rapture! In other words, you can turn the metal devils here to your side against the fleshy devils!" _

"Whoa…you mean that we can get machines like this robot to not try to kill us but instead to fight for us!?"

"_Exactly, Cody. Imagine the boon of having a friendly machine gun always hovering near."_

It didn't take the teenagers long to see the advantages that sort of thing would bring.

"_Now then, let me explain how this hacking business works. First, ya need those flashers. Since they all have the same genetic code, Cody's in this case, anyone wearin' them will get the benefits of them. So once all four of you are wearing them, you'll all benefit now. If one of you hacks a machine, everyone profit from it either in a new ally or a removed enemy. Plus you can use it on things like that vending machine over yonder for lower prices. I'm sorry if you trust me a little less Cody but that's a pretty good deal, eh?"_

"Yeah, I guess it is. Ok, four flashers with the Codemeister's genetic code comin' up!" Cody says with his fickle distrust of Atlas overpowered by his excitement for the hacking. With that excitement he quickly got four flashers and gave three to the others.

"_The…Codemeister…? Uh…I don't mean any offense but is that some kind of joke?"_

Despite themselves, the other teenagers couldn't help but laugh hysterically at that remark. Cody, meanwhile, only looked embarrassed and didn't respond for a moment.

"Well…um…hey, we've all got the flashers, Atlas!" Cody says, ignoring the question.

"_Very good. Now, you should see a slot for the flasher, in the middle of the bot. Do ya?"_

"Yes, yes I do."

"_Insert the flasher into the slot. Once that happens, a section of the bot should open up. Let me know if it does. And it very important you don't touch anythin' till I say so."_

Cody inserted the flasher and true to Altas' words, some of the robot's interior was revealed. The Tech Geek marveled at what he saw! He didn't quite have the words to describe it. He had extensive knowledge of the history of programming hardware but even that couldn't have prepared him for what he saw. His teal eyes were looking at a device that was incredibly advanced despite have antique parts and a basic design. When he felt his mouth start to water slightly from his pleasure at seeing the unique and strange technological parts he'd never seen anywhere before, Cody quickly stood up and turned.

"Looks like Cody Heaven in there…" Gwen joked.

The Tech Geek couldn't stop himself as he chuckled. She wasn't that far off. For as far back as he could remember Cody loved technology and even in his near endless stage of fear he had secretly marveled that the incredible technology here. Plus hearing Gwen acknowledge it in some odd way made him feel even better. The other two teens didn't. Noah rolled his eyes. Courtney looked bitterly at Gwen; she'd be having a talk with her.

"I see the insides, Atlas." Cody says into the radio.

"_Good. You'll notice what look like some pipes sections broken up along the inside surrounded by the circuits. In a tank in this bot is a tiny amount of a special kind of __**ADAM**__ that only works on machines. When you put that flasher in the flasher slot, you gave that __**ADAM**__ some of your genetic material. You hack this machine by guiding the __**ADAM **__on one side of the insides to the other. Once that's done, it will recognize you and anyone else with the same kind of flashers as an ally. There's a button near one of the startin' points. Once you press it, the flow of the __**ADAM**__ will start. If you mess up, there will be a wee-bit of a defense mechanism that'll give you a gentle shock backwards. You can try again after that since your flasher is still in the slot but it'll hurt ya a bit, boyo. Are ya ready, Cody?"_

"Yes!" Cody says eagerly and he's about to press the button when…

"Wait!" Courtney says. "Before you press that button, let's spilt up. We don't all need to be here while you try to hack this. Gwen and me can open the way in Emergency Access. Then we'll be able to leave right away and hopefully won't need to use this robot."

'_Oh sure, that's why. I bet you want your lesbian pal Gwenny and you to have some warning if more splicers come from our screams of death.' _Noah thought to himself.

"_Once again Courtney, that's a right good head ya got on those lovely shoulders of yours!"_ Atlas says, earning him a smile and faint blush from the young mocha C.I.T. _"She's gotta a point. Divine and conquer, and all that. Ok, the ladies will open the door while you laddies prepare an escort._ _Have her take the radio, we'll meet up in a jiffy."_

After Cody handed off the radio to Courtney, she and Gwen entered Emergency Access, leaving he and Noah on the other side of the doors with the about to be hacked robot.

While not expressing it, Noah secretly hoped that Cody would hack this robot quickly. The toughest members of their party were away and he was in a closed-down asylum.

He was hoping that he wouldn't have to hear the fresh screams of the Medical Pavilion.

The fresh screams of a medical asylum transformed into an insane asylum.

* * *

**And there you have it! I hope this chapter was worth the wait even if it was mostly more exposition and set up. Originally, this was only going to be half of a chapter but this was a natural cut-off point. It is my hope that this chapter explained most of the backstory of the Medical Pavilion area in a fairly entertaining way, as well as establishing the idea of hacking. To me, this place is fascinating because it shows in many ways the practical accomplishments of Rapture. I mean, a place without any illness and where almost any injury can be healed to the point where all of the doctors are forced to become plastic surgeons? That's really, really awesome! **

**There's a quick aside about the hacking in this story. Of all of the aspects of the game, this was one of the hardest so far to make plausible in the terms of this story. The problems came from how do I describe the mechanics of it since most of what is supposedly involved with the hacking is not actually seen or known to the player and how do I have the effects of the hacking effect all four people (How do I have it that one of the teens hacking a machine will give the same benefits to the others?)? The idea of the "flashers" came from the book "Bioshock: Rapture" though I also added the detail of that being how one starts the hacking process by inserting it in. I hope what I came up with makes sense. Please let me know your thoughts, ok? **

**Also, as you might have noticed, some of the teens are starting to have the beginnings of some bitterness and disagreements between them. Given the hectic situation they are in, this only seemed like the logical course of events for them. But the million dollar question, and what might determine whether they escape or nor, is if they can overlook these things and become a unified team. Will they? ;) **

**1: That's right folks, this is how plastic surgery came into being! And this has a deeper connection to Bioshock than just the backstory of Dr. Steinman. You see, during World War I there was an effort by Sir Harold Gillies that was called Project Façade, which had the intention of repairing the horrific facial damage caused by battle. The results were reflective of the newness of these techniques, i.e., while groundbreaking and a base from which other future advances could be made, they weren't too appealing to look at. While interesting, why am I bringing this up? Well, two of the splicer models in Bioshock, the "Toasty" and the "Waders", are inspired directly by some of the results of Project Façade! Have a look for yourself. Sadly, some images that were previously available on Google Images that had pictures of the Project Façade photos right next to stills of the splicers are no longer there. But it won't take too long of a Google search to see what I'm talking about. But be warned if you deicide to look up the Project Façade pictures, they can be very unsettling. They personally don't faze me but I easily understand while others could be made very uncomfortable by looking that them. They are very saddening. **

**2: Noah's knowing about Dr. Steinman was suggested by CMR Rosa and it was a brilliant idea! In addition to giving Atlas a break (at least briefly) from giving exposition it allows me a chance for me to offer my ideas about how the world of the 1950s would react to the sudden disappearance of so many high-level individuals. It might be a little cliché to say that it was perceived as a effort by the Russians to weaken America but remember, this was the time of the Communist witch-hunt of Senator Joseph McCarthy and it was form this that the fear of communism for the next 30 or so years. It may be slightly cliché but it seems very plausible to me. **

**3: "A fool's money is not long in his pocket" is another actual Irish phrase. What this one means is "A fool and his money are soon parted." Basically, the dumb can't hold onto their money for very long before being tricked into wasting it on crap. **

**4: As unbelievable as it might seem to the modern reader, for the longest time the majority of people didn't know that smoking cigarettes could lead to lung cancer. The first evidence of this started to surface in the time between 1920s and the 1940s. However, it really didn't start to mount until the 1950s. By this point, the tobacco companies were not only continuing to say that this wasn't true but were actually funding "research" which "proved" that this wasn't true to prolong the inevitable. As you might imagine, the scientists who did this were paid to produce experiments that lied by saying that cigarettes did not cause cancer. Despite the efforts of these scientists and the massive pro-smoking ad company of the tobacco companies, a report by the Surgeon General on smoking in 1964 made it almost impossible for there to be any doubt that smoking did in fact often cause lung cancer. But it wasn't until 1999 that the tobacco companies finally admitted what was widely known. Keep in mind that those same companies knew that smoking caused cancer since the 1950s. That means they knew that there products were killing people for over forty years but intentionally kept the debate going so they could continue to profit from it! And even after they finally admitted it, they haven't stopped selling cigarettes or altered their marketing of them all that much. Suddenly Andrew Ryan's wanting to profit from the Civil War of Rapture doesn't look so uniquely horrible, does it? **

**5: Atlas is using three bits of Irish slang in this sentence. The first bit, "hammererd", means "very drunk". The second, "hardman", means "tough guy". And the last bit, "hard neck", means "lack of respect". So, properly translated, the sentence, "But then folks started to get uglier than a fight with a hammererd hardman with a hard neck thanks to the splicing they were doin'" means "But then folks started to get uglier than a fight with a very drunk tough guy with a lack of respect thanks to the splicing they were doin'". **

**I'll try to get the next chapter out sooner but with my graduate school classes keeping me so busy it might be some time. Regardless of how long it takes, the next chapter will have the first Cody/Noah scene and the second Gwen/Courtney scene! Also, next time we finally see the teenagers in direct danger again…YAY! :) **

**Please go to Deviantart and take a look at those fan-art works that I mentioned. And while you're at it, please feel free to go to this story's TVtropes page and add to it! **

**Until then, ****please read, review, favor, fellow, and spread the word! **


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